I have had 6 different pc's in 6 years, maybe lucky as heck but never lost a hard drive, mobo, vid card etc due to failure. But those dam fans are so cheap and small they seem to have a rather short life. Cpu fan failed ystrdy in a box that i just installed a new hard drive (WD raptor 10k , 74g ). Scared me in thinking the new drive crapped out. HA This is another reason why the next box will be equipped with xeon "Woodcrest" dual FANLESS chips. Motherboard will be without a fan on NB chips etc. ... For the older boxes i guess it might be a good idea to now and then drip in a drop or two of sewing machine oil into the fans.
I used to own a computer repair shop so I've seen all sorts of fans fail. Do you ever smoke around your pc? That is the number one cause of fans failing. 90% of the failed fans that came in to the shop were from households where smokers reside. They were very gunked up! I don't want to tell you to not smoke around your computer but perhaps (if you do smoke) you could grab one of those sucker type smokeless ashtrays. Another thing I do is open the pc and use a standard can of dust-off on all the fans once a month. I have never had a fan fail in a pc (knock on wood) in my home and I've been using PC's full time since 1988 or so. CajunSniper / Puretick Administrator-Trader