My cooling fans 'breathe'

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Dart77

Member
My tower computer is oldish (3 years) and fairly basic. It has total of four fans: CPU and power supply and 2 x case fans. Just the standard stuff, nothing special. They always 'breathe', that is, I always hear them change their speed up and down and I know that it is the power supply doing this. It's only a basic power supply, 3 year old Thermal Master. I often have 4 external HDDs connected via the USB ports (USB 2.0). These all take power. However whether these HDDs are connected or not, the fan noise still varies.

My question is, Is this varying noise indicating that the power supply is struggling? Or is this normal? Maybe I should invest in a better quality power supply with more current?

Thanks
 
Are you sure its the power supply? They usually don't change fan speed. You are most likely hearing cpu fan going up and down. In which case, you most likely need to turn the system off and take a can of compressed air and blow out the cooling fan and heatsink to remove any dust bunnies.
 
Or turn of Q fan, or set different fan profiles in the BIOS, or set the fans with SpeedFan (application).
 
You could also have a fan failing, as bearings fail the fan drags inconsistently which causes a variance in rpm at a constant voltage
 
Thanks for replies. True, I am not sure it is the power supply doing it, it just sounds like a voltage variance causing it. I just put a new case fan in. I know the power supply fan is struggling so I will replace that soon also. I think I might disconnect each one individually and listen, try and eliminate them.

thanks
 
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