Bad PSU Fan

Darren

Darren

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Staff member
Following suite with my 7970 my PSU is now making a lot of noise from the fan. It's only done it twice now but it appears to just be when the fan ramps up to fast it starts making a pretty obnoxious noise. I'm not opposed to replacing the unit as it's 3.5 years old and has been in use almost constantly. However if I could for financial reasons I'd prefer to replace the fan in it. I don't have any soldering tools (although I need to change that) so unsure of how easy it would be for me to do. I don't care about voiding the warranty as it's already out after 3 years. It's a Corsair CX600.

Thoughts? Worth it to hassle with or just get a new PSU? I'll probably just replace it with the CX600M or something similar.

After watching a video for my PSU it appears that the fan is connected to a 2 pin header that plugs into the board inside the PSU. I'd just need to take a different 120mm fan and cut off the headers on each fan and solder the PSU header on to the new fan. Would it be possible to just leave it how it is with a 3 pin header and have it still work? I doubt it but would simplify things. Also I'm just going to nab one of the fans in my case to use and they're all LED fans except one. I've got one LED fan I'd like to put in there for the light effect but if the LED wouldn't work I'd prefer just use the normal fan. Would the LED still work? Also saw someone mention just replacing the fan but running the cable and plugging it in to the motherboard. Thoughts on that approach?

Just kicked itself into overdrive even without gaming after 2.5 hours of normal usage.
 
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Hmm, it sounds more like the fan controller in the PSU its self which means I would probably opt for a new PSU. It is possible to replace the fan I'm sure. But I'm not sure if the fan is controlled by a temp probe on the fan or in the PSU.
 
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.... The only moving part in the whole unit is the fan. It's an obvious physical sound and not coil whine or anything like that. It's pretty much silent most of the time but just appears that if it gets too hot the fan will ramp up to cool it down and then start to make noise because it's spinning too fast, hitting something, failing bearing, or the like. I'm going to get a can of compressed air and blast the hell out of it tomorrow. If it still gives me problems I'll pick up some tools and put one of my case fans in there. I'm pretty comfortable with the process after some research, just currently lack the tools to do it.

My GPU fans are doing almost the exact same thing. Once they hit a certain speed they start to make noise. I've tested it on those since I can control the fan speed. This issue is just a whole lot louder so I need to get it taken care of. The GPU fans I can live with. Especially since an RMA would knock out my main machine for 2+ weeks.
 
It should be just as easy as replacing any other fan as long as the Psu is discharged etc. the LEDs should still work but if not you can put it through the top and into a mobo slot. It's worth a try rather than throw it away.
 
Any ideas on how to discharge it? Only thing I can really think of is unplug it and press the power button on the case to try and pull any remaining power from it. Would just letting it sit out accomplish it as well? I'll hit up MicroCenter this weekend for my first soldering iron. :D I've been in desperate need of a real toolkit for this kind of stuff for ages and my college town doesn't have much in the way of tech shops.
 
Darren said:
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.... The only moving part in the whole unit is the fan. It's an obvious physical sound and not coil whine or anything like that. It's pretty much silent most of the time but just appears that if it gets too hot the fan will ramp up to cool it down and then start to make noise because it's spinning too fast, hitting something, failing bearing, or the like. I'm going to get a can of compressed air and blast the hell out of it tomorrow. If it still gives me problems I'll pick up some tools and put one of my case fans in there. I'm pretty comfortable with the process after some research, just currently lack the tools to do it.

My GPU fans are doing almost the exact same thing. Once they hit a certain speed they start to make noise. I've tested it on those since I can control the fan speed. This issue is just a whole lot louder so I need to get it taken care of. The GPU fans I can live with. Especially since an RMA would knock out my main machine for 2+ weeks.
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How does that not make sense? I said fan controller, i.e an IC in the PSU that may control the fan speed based on temperature. If you add a fan it better have adequate ventilation based on the same CFM air flow otherwise you will over heat your PSU.
 
Oh I gotcha. I thought you were saying the fan controller itself was faulty. I'll make sure I get a good fan in there. All of my case fans are in the neighborhood of 70-75CFM while from my research I found the one in my PSU is 85CFM. Probably would be fine though as I know it rarely ramps up enough to need it.
 
Personally,Id just save up and buy a new PSU considering you said its 3.5 years old and has been in use almost constantly..its going to have degraded and not be as efficient as it use to be.

Any ideas on how to discharge it?
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Unless you really know what your doing i wouldn't recommend messing around inside a Power supply,even if it is simply replacing a Fan.
 
Darren said:
from my research I found the one in my PSU is 85CFM. Probably would be fine though as I know it rarely ramps up enough to need it.
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That sounds like... a lot for that. At least it's thermally controlled :D
 
Shane said:
Personally,Id just save up and buy a new PSU considering you said its 3.5 years old and has been in use almost constantly..its going to have degraded and not be as efficient as it use to be.


Unless you really know what your doing i wouldn't recommend messing around inside a Power supply,even if it is simply replacing a Fan.
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I'm going to MicroCenter today in KC. I'll see how much stuff is going to cost and go from there. I kind of like this idea. I just got my tax return so if I need to just buy a new one I will.
 
I put a fan in a Silverstone PSU a few years back in my secondary computer. If I remember correctly it was a 3 wire PWM fan. It solved the noise problem and it's worked fine since.
 
I just picked up a new CX 600M for my own peace of mind. Now I have a backup PSU if I ever need one for testing purposes. I have to use every cable that comes with it so being modular doesn't really matter. The new cables though are skinnier though so cleaned up the inside of the case a bit.

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