I happened to be on Ars Tech and stumbled..

[Cowtown]

Across this reply to a post about someone wanting their temps inside the case to drop because of summer. The guy had a fairly decent rig with an Enermax 350W Dual Fan P/S. One replier said this...

"Disable the thermal monitoring of your fans in the Enermax. Look at the chart. The fan speed stays at a pathetic 40% until temperature inside rises to OVER FIFTY CELCIUS. Wow.
Cut the wires (or unplug them, depending on model) and wire them into 12V from a drive connector. This will drop case temps by about 5C, it did for me."

Anyone hear of this before? Does it work and if so, how is this done?

Shawn

[Cowtown]

Bump.

[sfa ok]

The psu has fans to cool itself, it really isn't meant to cool the rest of the case. The person probably had poor case cooling in the first place. Then again, I don't think it would hurt at all, and could be an easy way to add some cfm to your setup.

[It_The_Cow]

PSU fans are usually used as an exhaust. That's why some PSUs have two fans on them. One on the bottom to collect warm air, and one on the back to exhaust it. Since the fans only work when it's above 50C, it would probably beneficial to hack them to run all the time. This would help to get rid of heat in your case, although it could cause that dreaded negative air pressure

[Cowtown]

Ok, I knew what my Enermax could do, but I couldn't see why that would work at all, or why it would be beneficial. I won't bother, I have a high speed exhaust now anyways.

Thanks,

Shawn

[WyrmMaster]

I have done it, but you do not have to connect it to a 12v source, just twist the wires together where the sensor is.

[It_The_Cow]

If you didn't have a good exhaust, the PSU fan would help in that. Since you already have good cooling, it probably won't do all that much