A new semi-passive 850-watt fully modular PSU is around EUR 130, the Noctua fan around EUR 30.

I guess if you know electronics and how to safely handle the PSU internals, the risk of injury is low, but I personally would not risk it for EUR 100.

Also, if the only problem was the noisy fan, I guess selling it used would have returned most of the investment, leaving him with like EUR 50 in added cost. Compared to the price of a modern gaming PC, that's nothing (also avoiding not risking your life).

An important side note is that Cooler Master’s “10-year Warranty” is garbage:

> I looked at Cooler Master’s warranty, and for issues within the first two years you have to deal with the retailer. That would be Amazon in my case. So I looked at Amazon’s information on warranty issues. Their policy is that if it’s more than 30 days since purchase, you have to send it off to a third-party repair center and wait for them to diagnose and try to repair it. Here’s the kicker: Usually repairs take up to 20 business days (including delivery time), but could take slightly longer

Everyone knows electronic devices tend to die early or last forever. Cooler Master and Amazon are working a shitty dodge here, and I bet they avoid most DOA warranty claims because of it.

I am pretty certain that the G2 Noctua fans will start at 5V and they also in the 4 pin model will turn off at 0-19% and turn on at 20%. Its a bit of a shame Noctua don't make 2 pin fans anymore but it is possible on the latest most efficient models to get the low start voltage.

The G1 Noctua fans don't, I have a 120mm still in my case that is a decade or so old and it starts at a bit under 7V, but all the G2 140mm will start at 5V IIRC the Noctua presentations on this. Wish it was laid out in the specifications however.

I've "fixed" countless noisy computer fans over the years with simple lubrication. Peel off the label, remove the bung, pry out the circlip and pull the rotor + blade assembly out, clean off any remaining old grease/oil, and then pack the bushing with petroleum jelly before reinserting the shaft. Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly.

Check your credit card agreement. Some cards have a "purchase return protection" for when a retailer won't take back a product.

It's kindof a gimmick because it's easy to forget you have it, but if you have it, use it.

I see they have the exact same frustration with the results of trying to research how to safely work on a PSU as I've had. I know there's plenty of info out there about working on CRTs; are the caps in PSUs really more dangerous than that?

I learned about fans many yea^H^H^H decades ago when I had a sun external scsi disk box.

One day at Fry's Electronics I found they sold external scsi cases. So I bought a case and a cheaper bare scsi drive and hooked it to my sun.

The fan was quieter too!

and after a few months, the fan started getting louder. and louder. and then one day when the drive seemed to stop responding, I found it had failed.

sun fans were annoyingly loud, but they had one interesting property: THEY ALWAYS SPUN.

Get PSU from original manufacturers instead, someone like Seasonic. Most common brands simply repackage stuff and not really the best quality.

Noctua fans are usually a good choice (though I think their industrial line is better, especially if you can get a deal on the splash proof IP66ish ones). That all said, other than having extremely good lifespans for ostensibly a retail oriented fan, the other thing they tout (the low RPM and quietness) sometimes doesn't work well when you're replacing something much different like a high RPM Delta fan. The Noctuas may not push enough air, especially if there's a controller involved. I've had to build add on fan controllers before where whatever it is won't spin the fans fast enough until they heat up too much, which makes things even more fun. Especially for a PSU it's probably worth looking to see if there's a major difference in airflow (and at what RPMs), as it would suck to have your fixed up PSU cook itself because it's not flowing enough air.

Other less prominent vendors often do make easier drop in fans, that often have very good lifespans that might be easier to adapt than Noctua. Sanyo Denki fans easily will long outlive even Noctua (but don't typically play in the retail space); Delta and Dynatron also usually sell at least decent parts that are much better than whatever random chinesium fans lots of stuff come with. All of the above have much more variety in the profile of fan sizes and configurations and I would probably be looking through their parts catalogs to see if they don't have something that's a better fit (they often do).

The only other interesting thing is that I have picked up is soldering seems like a good idea in cases like this, but at least in bigger setups I've seen solder joints fail because of vibration. Maybe not an issue here, but crimping is usually a much better solution for connecting things that need to have a long life and might be vibrating like something attached to a fan.

Interesting article and great results.

PSUs are probably the only piece of Hardware, i DO NOT fiddle around with, not even for saving lots of money or time.

PSU Capacitors are no joke, especially in (older) TVs. However, I expected more like an instruction manual why PSUs are dangerous and how to properly discharge capacitors before taking them apart less than how to replace a fan although it's dangerous and getting away with it with a simple hint to not touch the capacitors (no offense).

BTW I would recommend to use electrical tape and shrink tube instead of simple adhesive tape (as it looks in the pictures) to prevent lose cables touching the spinning fan.

I've replaced at least 2 PSU fans, all without incident. The last time, I bought a pack of fans with that specific tiny connector, making the repair simpler.