Thursday 30 June 2011

Upgrading PSU Fan for a silent or quiet fan.

PSUs are pretty cheap, but if like me you like fixing things, here below is a method described for replacing the fan in your PSU with a quieter / silent alternative.

CARRY OUT THIS PROCEDURE AT YOU OWN RISK

Introductory video:



I replaced the 92mm fan in my rather noisy PSU with an Arctic cooling F9, which is soooo quiet, although I expect there are better fans to be had.

You will need:
  1. A soldering iron.
  2. Some solder.
  3. A replacement fan of the correct size (mine was 92mm)
  4. Various scredrivers
  5. Electical tape.
  6. Wire cutters and strong scissors.

All manufacturers say never to open a PSU as it is dangerous in there, and you will certainly void any warranties by doing this procedure. If you break anything, damage your computer, or electrocute yourself or your dog, then I will not be held to account. If all this makes you feel scared then buy a whole new psu with a large low rpm fan. . . . if its doesn't then please read on and I will explain a method o follow if YOU so wish.

Remove the psu from the computer, some people say to let the PSU rest for several hours after unplugging to let the capacitors de charge or something, check this out first if you are worried.

Undo any screws which look like they hold the casing on to the PSU, I had to bend mine open once I had removed 5 screws.

Now you can see inside, touch as little as possible there may be residual charge left in capacitors.

The fan is held to the PSU case with 4 screws or clips undo these and see if you can get the fan to move out, you may have the cut the wires leading to the fan at this point, CUT THE WIRES AS CLOSE THE THE FAN MOTOR AS POSSIBLE, we want lots of spare wire hanging ou to solder the new fan to. This is a one way ticket manoeuver.

There were three wires coming out of the PSU in my one Black (Ground), Blue (PWM) and Red (Positive). On the replacement fan there were 4 wires Black, Blue, Red and . . . yellow (Fan sensor). More on what colour wires you may have.

In the first instance, I matched the colours up soldered the wires together and this combo didn't work. So leave the reds and black matched up I connected the blue (from psu) and yellow(on fan). This works fine. The blue wire on the fan is there fore redundant in this instance.

It helped that I had a Arctic Cooling F12 as a main case fan to reference to, other wise things might have been a little confusing.

Once you have soldered all of th wire together, put 2 or three layers of electrical tape on each exposed separate wire in including any redundant ends of wires left over. Put all the screws back where they came from, nd reassemble.

Power up and enjoy the quiet. I now notice the noise from my processor fan which I couldn't even hear before, and I am smug in the knowledge that for the sake of a fan, someone somewhere didn't have to build a whole new PSUm saving resources, time, and the environment.

CARRY OUT THIS PROCEDURE AT YOU OWN RISK


Environmental Consultants
Environmental Permitting

Link

No comments:

Post a Comment

If you leave question they will get answered! But no spam please I will delete it. :-(