CPU Fans, Co-eds and Censorship

In addition to the PowerBook I use for most of my work, I also have, courtesy of my boss, a Dell Dimension 4600i. My wife uses it (remotely from her PowerBook) for access to QuickBooks online edition, which only works with Windows. I will use it to do any Windows development that may come my way. It's a nice machine for the price (under $900) but the CPU fan is driving me crazy. It's not the fan per se but the method by which it's mounted to the case. Dell | Talk forums reveal that I'm not the only one with this problem, though opinions vary and most people are having Dell send them new fans which mount like the old fans and surprise, surprise... exhibit the same problem. I posted the following:

I also suffer from this. Suffer only beginning to describe the pain and annoyance I feel from listening to that fan everyday. It appears to me that the source of noise for the fan isn't the fan itself, but rather the way it is mounted, somewhat loosely, to the case. If I put my finger on one of the black pieces of plastic fan mounts extruding from the back of the case, the noise goes away. Hardly an efficient way to work. Hiring a college girl to work for minimum wage to stand there with her finger on the fan mount hasn't held water with my wife. (Home office.) So, my next idea is to try and simulate "the finger" with various types of adhesive. Any suggestions? To sum up, I think it's the rattle of the fan mount as mounted to the case that is causing the noise. Dell will sell you a wife approved finger to test this theory if you call spare parts. I hear they're from people who needed finger replacement surgery from excessive three-finger saluting in previous versions of Windows.

Now everything is fine, and I await suggestions. What I get instead is someone from the original thread who completely agrees with me, but doesn't and suggests a closet, which I think is more befitting the co-ed than the computer:

I completely agree with you, the problem is not the fan itself, but the mechanical installation of it. I moved the computer a little and found out when the computer is installed facing 45 deg. down, the noise dissapears! It is deffinitely a mechanical problem, my guess is that the fan is not designed for upright installation and when it does it scratches the side of the fan. I will call Dell and complain about it tomorrow. I just talked with a friend of mine who bought his computer for over a year ago, and he had the same problem, he solved it by putting the computer in the closet!

So it's too good to pass up, and I respond appropriately to let him know that I've decided to use a silicone based adhesive. I may be toying with the whole co-ed theme here, but I did use the word screwed in an legitimate context. I was told I couldn't use screwed, even in a forum about general hardware problems (screws or the act of securing them in place apparently never comes up):

I'm still not convinced that it's a vertical vs. horizontal problem, but rather a problem with hard plastic rattling against the case. If they had put rubber inserts into the holes in the case before or even s c r e w e d (apparently that's a bad word) the mounting to the case instead of clipping it, there would be no problem other than the sweet hum of thermal dissipation. As it is, it moans... which in keeping with the hiring a co-ed theme, I've decided to go with a silicone based adhesive.

If Dell is going to censor their forums they might want to invest a little more money in a grammer checker that could serve dual purposes: 1) make sure that the words you censor are actually bad words, and 2) make my writing gooder. I can use all the help I can get in that department. While you're at it, fix your speed issues, espicially searching so it returns results... any results will do. My browser time-outs... times-out (is that a word?) before I ever get anything.