Wayfarers of Veeshan

I've got a noisey fan in my machine. It's below the power supply so I'm not sure what it's for. Hooked on part of a circuit board looking thing. It's held on by some type of long paddle looking retainers. One on each side going vertically in opposing directions. Any idea if you push or pull on them to get it to release?

That sounds suspiciously like the CPU fan ... which is what keeps your processor cool and running properly. The retaining clips are there to keep the heatsink snugged up to the processor. The fan is usually screwed into the heatsink, although some are a complete assembly.

There's also usually a thermal pad or some thermal grease between the heatsink and CPU as well to increase the heat transfer to the sink. That can make getting the heatsink off the CPU ... interesting.

If you think it's the 'large' fan that is making noise, I'd get someone to look at it.