Repair Power supply Fan

[Philgag]

Hello all,

The Rear Fan on my Antec 400 watt Powersupply is starting to die slowly. Normally running at 1600 RPM, it sometimes goes to down 900 making a bogus noise. My pc is clean and the fan is not covered in dust. I would like to send it to antec for repairs, but I cannot be without my PC running for a couple of weeks ( PC = school works). I am pretty good when it comes to assemble Pc and all so I wondered if I could open the unit myself ( voiding the warranty) and repair it myself? How does the fan connect in here? Can I re-lubricate the fan? I never opened a PSU before so I need some tips... thanks!

Phil

 

[trailnut]

I replaced the fan in my generic PSU about 6 months ago. After removing the PSU from the case, disassembly of the PSU was fairly straight forward, 4 screws and the most of the metal case comes off. My fan was hard wired to the control panel of the PSU so I had to cut the wires and remove the fan. PLEASE make sure you don't TOUCH any of the internal parts of the PSU except for the fan and fan wires. There is a risk of shock even when the unit is unplugged. I installed a new fan and ran the wires through the loom and plugged them into a free molex from the PSU. I taped off the cut ends of the old fan wires coming from the control board and reassembled the PSU. Works fine so far.

If you have built/changed components in your computer before this job shouldn't be too difficult. Just be sure not to touch any components in the Power Supply Unit except the fan and fan wires.

 

[Taz480]

Just to add a side note to that. I wouldn't run the new fan wires out of the PSU case to one of the molex connectors, for a couple reasons. I don't know what model you have but one, if ur PSU has 2 12volt rails, one is for mobo and peripherals and the other is for the CPU. It would be real easy to connect ur new fan to the wrong rail and suffer from power loss or other problems. Second, the fan may be thermostatically controlled and designed to only run at certain times. While it is prolly not gonna hurt anything to have the fan run all the time, I just wouldn't advise messing around with such an integrated system. The PSU may be looking for a certain resistance while running that fan or when it's not. A PSU may not seem as advanced as the rest of ur computer but they are. I am sure what trailnut has done was perfectly fine and works great oin his PSU but there is no gaurantee it will be that way with yours. I would just do as he said but get a hold of a soldering iron and a short stretch of shrink tubing and connect the new fan to the output it was designed for. Also, one more thing, don't forget to take note of the direction of flow on the old fan and make sure the new one goes in the same. You don't want to install the new one as an exhaust if it is sposed to be an intake. Hope that helps.

**EDIT- Its risky enough to void the warrent by breaking the seal. Ur really gonna hate urself if you do and somehow damage the PSU making it unusable.

 

[Philgag]

Thanks a lot guys, I installed a Vantec stealth fan in place of the old one. I ended up cutting the original fan wires and soldered fan's new wires to them. Work like a charm!

thanks again


Phil