During the following weeks she made three voyages to Galveston, Texas, to obtain medical supplies including antiserum to fight bubonic plague, which had developed during the rebellion of the Sonora Triumvirate.

From 12 June to 2 July 1924 she was at Rangoon, Burma, and Calcutta, India, delivering aviation gasoline and lubricating oil for a flight of United States Army planes making the first aerial circumnavigation of the world.

In 1927 Preble was assigned patrol duty in strife-torn China, taking aboard American and foreign refugees and escorting merchant vessels in the Yangtze[2] and Huangpu Rivers.

[1] Preble departed Tsingtao, China, on 12 July 1929 and returned to the United States, arriving at San Diego, California, on 17 August 1929.

For several years she was based at San Diego, cruising along the United States West Coast, with operations in the waters of Mexico and in the Caribbean.

She departed Pearl Harboron 20 September 1937 for naval mine training operations on the U.S. West Coast and returned to Hawaii in December 1937.

She remained in the Hawaiian area until the outbreak of World War II, engaging in scheduled mining exercises and fleet maneuvers.

Preble was undergoing an overhaul at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard when the Japanese attacked the base and was unable to get underway.

On 1 April 1942 she departed Pearl Harbor with units of Mine Division 1 to lay a large minefield at the French Frigate Shoals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, 500 nautical miles (930 km; 580 mi) northwest of Oahu.

In July 1942 she assisted in laying a defensive minefield around the base at Kodiak, Alaska, returning to Pearl Harbor via Seattle, Washington, for overhaul and patrol operations.

On 6 December 1942 she departed Pearl Harbor for the Fiji Islands and Noumea on Grande Terre in New Caledonia, serving on escort duty in the New Hebrides during January 1943.

She was assigned to duty escorting aircraft carriers engaged in training, acting as an antisubmarine patrol vessel and plane guard during flight operations.

Her name was struck from the Navy List on 3 January 1946 and she was sold for scrap to Luria Brothers of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 26 October 1946.