Fan bearing bad in PSU

[rambow]

i think my main worry would be disassembling the psu then touching something charged inside. how likely would this be, and is replacing the fan even possible?

i have pretty good experience, ive put together about 6 computers and im a freshman EE

the noise is killing me though guys, any ideas?

 

[mpilchfamily]

Often its best not to mess with a PSU because of the shock and death risk. But a fan replacement is fairly easy and should keep you away from the more deadly parts of the PSU. Most often the fan is plugged into the PCB by a little white plug similar to those found on many stock chipset coolers on motherboards. The ones that don't use a regular fan header. So removing the old fan is easy. Then just cut that connector off and splice it in on the new fan and your all set. So go for it. As long as you don't go poking around any of the CAPs you will be fine. Just leave the PCB where it is and don't try to remove it from the case and you won't touch something you will regret.

 

[RanDum72]

Another solution would be to unscrew the fan, peel the round sticker covering it at the bottom, put in a couple of drops of lubricant ( I use Archer precision lubricator with Teflon from RadioShack), making sure it doesn't make a mess or get into a place other than the hole, put the sticker back and give the fan a few spins to spread the lube. Then try powering it on and see if the noise is still there.

 

[MarcVenice]

shock and death risk ? Lol when it's unplugged ? I replaced the fan, and I've got 2 left hands so to speak. It's really easy, all I had to do was unscrew it, splice the little white, 3 pin plug if I'm not mistaken, soldered it onto the replacement fan, and screwed that one into the PSU. Now I've got a lovely, quiet PSU. No risk at all, just don't drop any screws into the PSU, might be tricky to get them back

Oh, and opening up the PSU does void the warranty.

 

[mpilchfamily]

If you go and touch something directly linked to one of those large capacitors in there or touch the leads of the capacitors you will receive a life threatening shock. Those caps can hold a charge well after its been unplugged and sometimes even after you have unplugged in and hit the power button on your system to try and discharge any remaining power they still hold a charge. But like i said you are not likely to touch any of that replacing the fan.

If the fan is on the verge of throwing a bearing or has a worn berring, oil isn't going to help much. Its best to just replace the fan. Now if the unit is a couple a years old then it may be best to just replace the whole unit.

 

[rambow]

http://www.xoxide.com/ultra-xfinity-600w-titanium.html (i realize ultra can be sketchy, but their xfinity line is pretty good)

no, it is old as of april, so definitely don't want to replace whole unit. I do a little more poking around, if the fan that went bad is the one facing the inside of the case, i'm thinking maybe i can just turn it off and leave it off.

anyway, thanks for the help guys

 

[zagood]

Unless you have your heart set on upgrading to a better fan, you might try getting in touch with Ultra and asking for a replacement fan. I did this with Silverstone and they sent it right out. That way you have the fan plug already set up and you don't have to deal with the splicing.

You may even want to contact jonnyguru and see if he has any lying around.
http://www.jonnyguru.net/forums/

-z