Starting out with replacing fans

[ArmorAlley]

Can someone point me to a good site/thread on replacing fans in peripherals/PSUs/computers in general please? I don't mind soldering.

The purpose is to make everything quieter. That they may make the devices cooler or use a lot less electricity are big plus points.

a. Is this a reasonably simple job? Namely, match the plug and the size of the fan?
b. Which fans in which machines are the low-hanging fruit?
c. Which fans in which machines would benefit most from a new fan? For example LC 475? Compact Mac cases?
d. What about the fans in PSUs? Stay away or go for it?
e. Which fans in which machines should I be careful of? I have blown processors in the past because I forgot to plug in the processor fan, namely a Pentium III 1000mHz processor back in the year 2000. That was an expensive mistake.
f. Does anyone have advice on this topic? If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

 

[joshc]

a. Yes, for the most part. There are 5v and 12v fans, so that to bear in mind too.
b. Replacing fans in Macs is, for the most part, a simple job.
c. I replaced the fan in my LC 475 with a cheap one from eBay, seems to push enough air around and its way quieter than the stock one. Haven't done any SE/30s yet (a tiny bit trickier, does require soldering if you want it done properly)
d. Yeah, but you have to bear in mind that the PSU fan *is* the CPU fan in a lot of Macs, e.g. IIci/IIcx etc where that's the only fan for the whole system. So replacing with an ultra quiet/slow fan would have an affect on the overall airflow for the whole system. Static pressure is the important thing to look at here
e. My LC 475 was not happy without a fan at all, it crashed when the 040 got too hot. G3s/G4s in general need good cooling too, especially the MDD and Quicksilver or anything that's been overclocked.
f. I say go for it, most the time you can revert to the stock fan if things don't turn out how you wanted.

Hope that's useful. Actual fan recommendations will depend on the particular machine you want to upgrade. For what it's worth, my Quicksilver has Noctuas everywhere (both system fans and the PSU fan) and its very quiet and it doesn't overheat.

 

[Byrd]

Hi ArmorAlley,

I'd take a step back and refurbish fans over replacing unless they have complete had it. Blasting out the dust, oiling them and cleaning the internals will often make an old fan function as new with less noise. If they're rattling around, smell or just look plain stuffed replace them.

a) Match the amps first (too high amperage running off a motherboard will smoke it out), volts, plug doesn't matter as you can switch them around
b) PSU fans I find are often the worst and in need of replacement, second are the cheap 80-120mm fans in cheap PCs
c) Stock Macs I wouldn't upgrade fans, but if significantly upgraded a modern fan is quieter and pump out more CFM
d) Yeah, just don't touch anything else and they're usually connected by a plug on the PCB you might need to salvage. Take note of the direction of air - most fans have an arrow on the side showing this
e) I've only ever really heard of Athlon XPs burning out within seconds without a fan; modern devices won't start or throttle speeds if a fan is not detected. In old Macs, they just get warmer.
f) see above on restoring the old fans first!