Replacing psu fans - Experience/Suggestions?

[lardan]

Hi guys ,

I've got a OCZ modxstream pro 500W PSU and I want to change the fan on it for a quieter one.

Has anyone had any experience of changing out psu fans?

Can you use standard case fans or does it vary with the psu? And will I have to get soldering?

Any info/advice would be great (aside from changing the psu!)

Cheers

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

not really sure why you would do that, but lets get something straight first BIN THAT OCZ BS PSU, they are the worst and i mean worst psus in existence even a cheap 3rd party psu from honk kong will do better(most of time) than ocz, they just cant make psus, ram: not awesome but still good, ssds same thing but psus is a big no.

if you take the casing off you void you warranty just so you know, and it is just 4 screws as long as your careful with taking the casing off there shouldnt be a problem

(aside from changing the psu!)

just noticed that but really you should, i suggest you get something like Corsair CX500, cheap very reliable and can run even something like 7850

 

[lardan]

not really sure why you would do that, but lets get something straight first BIN THAT OCZ BS PSU, they are the worst and i mean worst psus in existence even a cheap 3rd party psu from honk kong will do better(most of time) than ocz, they just cant make psus, ram: not awesome but still good, ssds same thing but psus is a big no.

if you take the casing off you void you warranty just so you know, and it is just 4 screws as long as your careful with taking the casing off there shouldnt be a problem

just noticed that but really you should, i suggest you get something like Corsair CX500, cheap very reliable and can run even something like 7850

thanks dude but I'm after modding the psu to suit my needs - the thing that annoys me about it is the fan (which isn't that loud but it is the loudest thing in my system now). I'm not too bothered about the warranty - although that said there are no seals that would show that I'd opened the thing up anyhow. I would certainly bin the thing if I had the money but I'd rather spend £10ish on a new fan + isn't that the kool bit about this kind of thing - changing/modding stuff!

 

[Murphyslaw]

1 thing to let you know if you plan on changing the fan.

computer PSU's contain capacitors that can a strong charge for long periods of time.

 

[sheroo]

I've done a couple of PSU fan swaps. The ones I've done just used standard 120mm case fans. Until you open up the PSU you won't be able to see how its connected to the board - some use headers, others are soldered directly to the board. Either way you can just snip the wires, solder & heatshrink them - its pretty straight forward.

The only thing you have to be careful of is touching the caps, they can give a nasty shock even after its been unplugged for a while, so you need to be careful.

 

[006409]

one thing to add. when changing it if you leave it plugged into a wall socket that you know the switch works on and make sure its turned off it will earth the whole think drasticsly reducing the chance of shock. just make sure that switch works! Test it!

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

one last thing i should mention, ESD strap is more than advisable for both you and psu safety

 

[lardan]

Update - just rebuilt the rig (without ESD strap - shock horror!) and tried it with the psu facing upwards - it's reduced the noise quite a bit so I'm going to stick with it until upgrade time. Then maybe go for one of the quiet Seasonics. I don't fancy any capacitor shocks!

 

[sheroo]

Update - just rebuilt the rig (without ESD strap - shock horror!) and tried it with the psu facing upwards - it's reduced the noise quite a bit so I'm going to stick with it until upgrade time. Then maybe go for one of the quiet Seasonics. I don't fancy any capacitor shocks!

Seasonic make some nice units as do Corsair. Depending on your setup there are a few passive units out there as well. Tom recently used a 400W passive unit in his server build.