Is it harmful for a fan to stop it using finger?

[asembler]

I wonder wheter is it harmful for a fan to stop it for a moment using a finger? Until yesterday I didn't know that it should be done only on the center of a fan and I have stopped my 1300RPM fans in my new PC by gently putting a fingers in fan blades... Fans have stopped without a problem and I didn't broke any of blades, but now I have noticed some strange (very silent buzz) noise coming from my VGA fans. Probably, it was present before and I just didn't noticed that, but I'm not 100% sure and I want to know wheter I could break something without breaking blades.

 

[madhawa101]

ofcores you can always harm the coils of the fan....and the barrings can get loose or misplaced by pressing it ... don't do that....
and why the hell did you do that.....

it was tempting wasn't it LOL....

 

[Bobnova]

If you deliver a large enough physical shock to the fan blades it can bend things.
If you do it gently, it's fine. I've done it countless times.

 

[Tagi]

I once accidentally did this to my Ultra Kaze 3k. ouch

 

[FireMogle]

I always ease a finger in there to stop them, never seemed to hurt the fan. My finger may argue otherwise... but its fine.

 

[Seebs]

Try that with a 6K rpm fan going full bore and you'll soon find that your fingers are way more delicate than the fan blades...

 

[Knufire]

It's fine with 1300RPM fans. 3k+...I have scars.

 

[Archer0915]

Yeah I lost a chunk from my finger one time to a fan. Stings like a ***** tooooo. The fan chugs along hapily to this day.

I thought I was the only person in the world that this could happen too. I am in good company.

 

[repilce]

LOL, I just did this yesterday with my GFB1212VHW , I was using it to cool myself because the AC was having a hard time keeping up with the near 100F temps outside (for those that know) it hurt like a sunuva

Now I remember why I always kept a fan grill on that thing