I just concluded a pleasant 20 minute call with a WD tier-2 technical support person regarding this issue. I gave him a background of my experience up to this point and told him about returning my first EX2 because the tier-1 WD support person thought my fan was defective. In retrospect after purchasing a second EX2 I can say with a high degree of confidence the fan in my first EX2 was probably not defective. I also emailed him a link to this two-month discussion because it contains some helpful information including a suggested solution.
The technician committed to escalating the issue, so at this point all we can do it wait and see how WD responds.
