Safe to remove fans from PSU?

[keiron99]

My computer makes a helluva racket. I've got a supposedly "whisper" quiet Enermax 465 PSU and I'm sure it's this that's making the noise. It's got 2 fans, and I've already unplugged one (the exhaust one). I've got a Zalman 'flower' CPU fan, which is reasonably quiet (on low setting). Everything runs quite stable, with CPU temp at about 50 to 56 and system temp about 37 (according to my Hardware Doctor). I never run it hard with gaming or anything. Anyway, to the point - could I safely remove the intake fan from my PSU? What harm could it do?

[dustybyrd]

as long as you keep one fan blowing air out of the psu...with at least 20cfm's or so...then you should be fine unless you use a computer extremely hard in 95+ degrees temperature...

many psu's have only one exhaust fan and pull air threw vents on the power supply inside the case...and that is sufficient...especially for power supplies in this 350-450 watt power range...

you might void the warrantly however

[larva]

I don't recommend taking both fans out of the power supply. It is a recipe for disaster. It may still function fine but developing that kind of heat in the power supply can lead to premature failure. If the fan you currenlty have in the supply is too loud, fit a quieter on.

You are probably better off to use the 92mm fan rather than the rear 80mm unit, as the volume of the power supply box is small enough to ventilated by either exhaust or intake fans fairly efficieintly, so using the larger size will allow you to spin the fan slower for a given airflow and help reduce noise.

[Foxie3a]

lets say you turn them off...and you go out for a few hours with your computer on..and windows crashes and CPU usage goes upto 100% and it has everything go on..the PSU gets hot..it'll burn out..maybe even a fire if you have REALLY bad luck..so I would just keep the noise with the cooling.. :)

xxfoxyjohnyxx@netscape.net

[Crash893]

you could however try replaceing them with quiter fans

or putting some sort of rheostat on them

there is also such thing as a psu muffler ( small box that is attached to the out side of the psu with condutis thare are lighed with some sort of sound absorbing material

[unreal]

replace it or, if it doesnt get to hot inside, u should be able to remove it with out any probs

[Crash893]

also i was thinking

if you mounted a bigger heat sink on it

and mounted it verticly you might be able to get it cool by drawing in more cold air as hot air rises out of it.

you might need to put some sort of chimny on it

[sandman001]

I would replace the fans with some nice quiet panaflow fans at around 20dba.

BTW, congrats on the green larva.