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Anonymous12/21/25, 07:37No.2966103
Generic 3-speed ceiling fan circa 80s or 90s makes buzzing noise at highest speed. I don't know what brand this is, I don't have a model number, but hopefully it's a similar enough widespread design.
It makes excessive motor noise at the highest speed only. It sounds likely electric, like a buzzing, and it's definitely not the usual "motors just make noise" thing. It's something intrusively loud, and the noise seems to come and go some days, due to indeterminate factors.
It's also not balanced, and is not grounded properly, but I don't know how likely that is to cause what I'm hearing.
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Anon12/21/25, 07:49No.2966104
OP here.Actually, the grounding might be fine. It's mounted to grounded conduit, and only the ground wire isn't screwed down under the cap.
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Anon12/21/25, 07:54No.2966105
are you at all technically inclined? if so you can test the run capacitor with a multimeter that also tests capacitance (should be a black box with 2 to 5 wires coming out of it) 90% of the time the diagram of what values each capacitor should be
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Anon12/21/25, 19:04No.2966183
Depending on the noise, it could be a failed bearing.
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Anon12/22/25, 02:32No.2966279
are the blades sagging from gravity pulling on them ?
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Anon12/22/25, 02:58No.2966285
sometimes the screws are loose and it makes that kind of noise
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Anon12/22/25, 15:45No.2966404
First thing I would do is dissassemble it and clean out everything inside. I've seen old ceiling fans with the motor area choked up with accumulated dust and it makes them not operate so well.
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Anon01/03/26, 01:44No.2968691
record the sound and upload it to vocaroo then post the link here so we can hear it
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Anon01/05/26, 20:00No.2969218
Ima say bad capacitor.
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Anon01/09/26, 16:53No.2969962
Put a Tesla motor in it
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Anon01/12/26, 17:44No.2970456
Absent further information, I'm thinking it's probably a failed bearing. Try turning it off and spinning it fast by hand. If you still hear the noise, it's a physical problem. If not, may be something electrical.Could also be that the motor has to work too hard to spin it at high speed due to bad bearings or general filth.I can state from personal experience that old fans do benefit from periodic maintenance, which entails partial disassembly and cleaning. Doesn't take too long, look up a video on YT.
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Anon01/24/26, 01:17No.2972616
>old ceiling fan crackles
>oh fuck wtf now, open to fix, everything looks alright
>it literally sounds like sparks going off
>I remember I use to unscrew the light bulbs because the switch died like a decade ago
>unscrewing bulbs until they turned off left a tiny gap just enough for them to spark
kek