Is it safe to hot-swap fans?

[Howard]

:Q

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

There have been posts about people messing up hard drives and motherboards while plugging in fans, so I wouldn't recommend it at all. Especially not into the motherboard fan headers. I plug stuff into fan adapters that come right from a molex connector, but that is on my secondary PSU anyway--I wouldn't do it off of the primary.

 

[MX2]

Yeah, I wouldnt do it. I have read things about power fluctuations causing data loss among other things.

 

[MBentz]

I have actually damaged fans while trying to do that. Looking back on it I was very lucky I didn't lose my HDD... or worse.

 

[Zepper]

I have hooked fans onto my fan controller (Sunbeam Rheobus) with the control cranked up full - even high powered ones (3/4 Amp) w/o problem. But I wouldn't try that on a mobo connector except for really low powered fans.

.bh.

 

[SonnyDaze]

This one time.... I was unplugging a fan from a 3-pin extension cable (which was still plugged into a mobo header with the computer on) and when I unplugged it, the cable fell from my hand and the male connectors hit the case.....OOhh!! Blue and red sparks!! :Q And then the system just shut down. Soooo I silently prayed and ignoring the smell coming from my trousers, I plugged the fan back into the extension cable and turned the system back on (while crossing my fingers). Lucky for me it booted and everything appeared okay and the fan still worked. So after that little fiasco, the sytem gets shut down when I have to go inside to work.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: SonnyDaze
This one time.... I was unplugging a fan from a 3-pin extension cable (which was still plugged into a mobo header with the computer on) and when I unplugged it, the cable fell from my hand and the male connectors hit the case.....OOhh!! Blue and red sparks!! :Q And then the system just shut down. Soooo I silently prayed and ignoring the smell coming from my trousers, I plugged the fan back into the extension cable and turned the system back on (while crossing my fingers). Lucky for me it booted and everything appeared okay and the fan still worked. So after that little fiasco, the sytem gets shut down when I have to go inside to work.

Glad I'm not the only one w/ this experience!

Howard, you're smarter than that, tell us the whole story!

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I'm setting up hot-swappable fans, but I'm doing so on the secondary PSU, which should have more than enough to handle the change in load. I wouldn't even think about trying it on the primary PSU, or with fans connected to the mobo.