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Power Supply Questions
I have an old P3 case working fine until the Power Supply (300W 20 pin) fan started doing a weird grinding noise. At one point the computer was acting slow and letargic (pausing) on a game. I decided to find out what was happening. The PS fan is making the noise...had a lot of dust on it. Knowing this could be trouble I started by dusting off all case fans including the power supply. I did a good dust off job on all the computer. Air is now flowing nice.......I still noticed the PS fan still does the grinding noise sometimes only. The computer boots and works fine. In my wisdom I decided to buy a newer Antec 350 PS Unit at Staples and replaced. The new had the 24/20 pin and I pulled the 4 thing adapter and it is 20 pin..but i noticed that ONE PIN about the middle was like empty and did not possess a copper end like the others. This was not the case with the original PSU mb connector. Well guess what....The NEW PSU unit NEVER booted. I tried everything, but it would not boot. I went as far as clearing the CMOS. It did not went ON at all never. No BIOS No boot up just nothing. Then I took it out, replaced with the OLD PSU and guess what, it booted up normally.... What happened? I returned the new PS got my money back.. Computer still works but sometimes the PSU unit makes the funny noise. Any suggestions? I have scoured the internet and all PSU now come with the 20/24 pin adapter, but do not find a 20 pin 300 psu anywhere. |
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Power Supply Questions
Joewrote:
Any suggestions?Joe, just replace the noisy fan in your existing PSU. There are articles on doing this at "Quiet PC" sites on the net (google it). If you are at all handy with a bit of wire soldering (meaning you don't have to solder on the PC board in the PSU), then you can do it. Just honor the polarity so the new fan blows the right direction. This assumes that the PSU is fine, just the fan is getting old and cranky. Some out there (myself included) have swapped in a quiet Panaflo L1A 80mm fan for their noisy 80 mm OEM fans in their PSU (measure yours to be sure of the size, standard sizes for fans are 60, 80, 92, and 120 mm, but dollars to doughnuts yours is 80). Just be aware that lower airflow will be more stress on the PSU. But I've had no problems with this mod done to generic 300W units running chips with a higher power consumption than yours (amd paliminos). Remember, you obviously do this at your own risk, but it is not that challenging to do and worked ok for me. Price for fan $5-10. Cheap fix to get a quieter PSU. Anyone else do this mod to their psu as well? |
#3
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Power Supply Questions
The Outsiderwrote:
Don't you have to let the PSU stand for about 24hrs. before working inside it to make sure it is fully discharged? My Zalman PSU is fairly quiet already but I wouldn't mind doing this mod if it will make it even quieter.I wouldn't mess with the Zalman, as Zalman stuff is designed with quiet in mind (for the most part). As for working inside the PSU, the only thing I can think of that would store power would be the capacitors (typically look like large cylinders in a PSU), but you can discharge them by just pulling the power plug from the PSU, as the MB/NIC/other parts will slowly drain the capacitors within 5-10 seconds. For me, I just watch my NIC light (it supports WOL so it is always "awake") and it will turn off within a few seconds after pulling the plug. Now that is for PSUs. DON'T mess around with a CRT monitor/TV. There is a spot in them that has HIGH (10,000) voltage IIRC. |
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