Question Need to replace a case fan

[paulsiu]

I am working on a PC for a relative. It's a GB-BXA8-5557. She was complaining that it was overheating and making rattling noises. I took the cover off and notice that one of the fan had broken blades and was no longer spins, so the other fan is spinning faster to compensate making the rattling sound. The BIOS also notice that one of the fan is down.

I took a look and the fan is a AUC0512DB and has the dimension 50x50x15mm. The fan uses 4 cables which is unusual.

My thought is that I could just replace it with an identical one. The cable is solder on, so I would have splice in a new one. The problem is that I can't find an AUC0512DB locally. I could buy it from China, but that may take weeks to arrive. I was thinking of just buying something else that may fit, but it's got 4 cables and most of the fan has 2.

If I do have to get an exact replacement, I thought I could try Digikey, anyone have experience with them? A lot of the other vendors appear to be in China.

Paul

 

[aigomorla]

looks like the fan is a 50x50x15

Meaning its a 50mm fan thats 15mm thick.
4 wires means its a PWM fan.

This might work..

New Original Delta AUC0512DB 5015 12V 0.27A 4Wire server inverter Cooling Fan - Newegg.com

Buy New Original Delta AUC0512DB 5015 12V 0.27A 4Wire server inverter Cooling Fan with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

Its still china shipping, but i think you have newegg to protect you somewhat.

There are also some listed in Ebay, and i believe if you do paypal you will get buyers protection.
As for sourcing them locally in the US, i do not think you will find any.

 

[mindless1]

This is what I hate about book sized PCs (besides non-upgradeable past memory amount), that they shoehorn in cooling without much thought about noise or lifespan.

At first I thought, probably some generic fan and then I'd ask the owner how that fan blades came off because that is unusual unless someone (a child?) stuck something in the holes while it was spinning. Then I saw it was Delta, which should at least have enough quality control that the fan blades themselves are free from defects.

If your relative regularly uses this system, I wouldn't wait on something shipping from China since it could take a month. Digikey yes, I regularly buy components there and they are a top notch electronics suppler, more professional and fast shipping than anyone selling mere computer parts. The downside is they often charge a premium. Their $10 price is very reasonable, some of their fan stock costs double what it does elsewhere.

Their shipping via USPS is a good cheap option but USPS rates have near doubled in recent years, making this one at Amazon about the same delivered price:
https://www.amazon.com/Delta-AUC0512DB-0-27A-4Wire-Cooling/dp/B00QDTVROA BUT I'd still rather go through Digikey than a 3rd party Amazon seller. Digikey is practically guaranteed to have no counterfeit or NOS (new old stock) that sat around for years, only high quality genuine parts, stored properly.

Now if it were MY system, once the warranty ran out I would have gotten more creative. I would have cut a nice big hole in the top of the case and mounted at least a 92mm x 25mm fan on top, with either a filtered intake panel or at least a fan guard on it. It'd be dual ball bearing, major brand. That would also cut down on noise as those GB book PCs seem to be pretty loud even if both original fans were working properly. With a 92mm fan on top you could probably benefit from unplugging and removing both of the original fans as long as lack of them being present does not cause the bios to halt from that error and not boot as a result. Granted I would not do this to someone else's system, just ranting.

 

[aigomorla]

Now if it were MY system, once the warranty ran out I would have gotten more creative. I would have cut a nice big hole in the top of the case and mounted at least a 92mm x 25mm fan on top, with either a filtered intake panel or at least a fan guard on it.

lmao you should see what i did to my Intel NUC6i7kyk skulltrail.

I basically butchered the top, and dropped in a 6 heat pipe cooler ontop of the cpu directly over its stock heat pipes, because the thing was prone to throttling.

The thing runs real cool now.
Its sort of big and bulky as it has a heatsink jutting out the top, but the thing runs better then stock.

 

[Deegan000]

lmao you should see what i did to my Intel NUC6i7kyk skulltrail.

I basically butchered the top, and dropped in a 6 heat pipe cooler ontop of the cpu directly over its stock heat pipes, because the thing was prone to throttling.

The thing runs real cool now.
Its sort of big and bulky as it has a heatsink jutting out the top, but the thing runs better then stock.View attachment 23194

Now thats how you get it done.