Noisy video card fan

Is there any way to safely quiet a video card fan? I’ve opened the case and tried the old “jiggle-and-fiddle” technique, but it is just getting louder and louder as the days go on.

It’s a 3-D Propher DDR-DVI card, and it hangs upside down in my AGP slot. I’ve seen programs that can turn off the system fan, but they never struck me as safe (it’s there for a reason, right?)…

The noise is getting unbearable, as it is louder than my heater/fan.

Sounds like the bearings are burned out. No solution except to replace the fan. Or you could get a real computer made by intelligent computer engineers, one that doesn’t need a fan like an iMac or Mac Cube.