PSU Buzzing?

[Eleaf]

Hello! I have a built tower with a 350 watt psu. Now every once in a while, it will buzz loudly and is very annoying. It will sometimes buzz at boot and sometimes not. Usually to get it to stop buzzing, I unplug the cord from the back and plug it back in and try it again.
Sometimes it does it, sometimes it doesn't! If it doesn't do it when it starts up, then it wont do it at all while its on, but if it starts up buzzing, it will stay that way, sometimes variying in pitch.

I think it may be the internal fan in the psu. Does anybody know what I should do? I'm thinking maybe some dust or something is wrapped around it. But I don't know why it would do it sometimes and other times not do it...

 

[Nitestick]

it could be the fan. its not an electrical sort of buzzing is it? you could open up the psu VERY CAREFULLY, and use some canned air to blow the dust out of it. i say very carefully because the reason they have warnings on them is because capacitors can hold a lethal charge even when not connected to a power source. in other words don't touch anything inside the psu.

 

[Eleaf]

Hmm.. WEll I dont have canned air right now. But It doesn't really seem like an electrical buzzing. For instance, when It boots up and it is buzzing, if I hit the psu, it will change the pitch as the fan slows down then goes back up as I see the fan change speeds a little.

Yea, opening up the PSU sounds really scary.. = S. I'm not sure what to do otherwise though. I have some extra fans laying around and I would be able to replace the one in there...

 

[Nitestick]

what you have to keep in mind is that even if the fan isn't hardwared to the PCB in the psu it uses a different plug. its not too unsafe to open a psu and swap a fan i did that just a few weeks ago because my psu sounded like a jet engine. you just have to be wary of not touching the components. especially capacitors. i'm hoping you know what a capacitor looks like

 

[Eleaf]

I do know what a capicitor looks like. Well, I'm going to take a look inside and see if I can quickly swap out the fan and see if it's better. I'll be careful.

 

[Eleaf]

Argh.. I don't know how I would replace that fan. It seems like you need to do soldering or something to get the connectors on there... O.O. But the fan looks fine! I'm not sure what to do...

 

[Nitestick]

****. lol i was browsing the other forum sections and i just noticed this thread http://techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77970

 

[Eleaf]

Hmm lol = P. But do I still have to solder this thing on?! lol Why can't it just be a nice 'standard' plug... lol... Argh... Any other suggestions?

 

[Nitestick]

well you could splice the wires but be sure to insulate the joins so it doesn't short. just sever the wires from the original fan and join the wires from the new one.

 

[Eleaf]

Ok cool. I was going to do this but I instead thought for a few hours and flicked the fan a little. At first, I found a noticable "click...click...click" whenever I spun the fan with my finger. But after a while, it went back to normal silence! So I decided to put it back together and it booted with "normal" fan noises!

That might work for a while, but once it starts doing it again, I'll replace it with another fan.

Cool, thanks!! =-)