VOGONS


First post, by ncmark

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I was thinking of modifying a turbo cool 300 with a more quiet fan..... I have some Nidec fans laying around.

The machine I'd be putting it in would be a p233 MMX with a trident VGA card.... so it would not exactly stress the power supply. Still, is this wise?

(The p233 currently has a very questionable supply,,, "king year",,,, has anybody ever heard of those?)

Reply 1 of 3, by obobskivich

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Never heard of "king year" but that's not surprising - there's so many OEM and rebrands out there it's hard to keep it all straight. As far as modifying the fan - few things come to mind:

1) Make sure you aren't dramatically reducing total airflow capabilities.
2) If the fan has to be soldered directly to something, do a good job (you may consider just cutting the leads and splicing/soldering into those, vs desoldering from a PCB and re-soldering).
3) If the fan is thermally controlled replace it with one that's also thermally controlled (what I mean here is, some fans actually have the thermal control built into them, instead of an external device that adjusts their supply voltage).

That all having been said, it's likely just a basic 80mm fan that you should be able to swap pretty painlessly, the "worst" thing I've seen doing that on PSUs is some models need a slimmer fan than the conventional 80x80x25 models that PCs use for exhaust/intake fans, which can sometimes be obnoxious to source, but not impossible.

Reply 2 of 3, by ncmark

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The reduced air flow is what concerns me the most. But then you look at the silencer series which have slower fans and are the power supplies really any different.... probably not.

Reply 3 of 3, by obobskivich

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ncmark wrote:

The reduced air flow is what concerns me the most. But then you look at the silencer series which have slower fans and are the power supplies really any different.... probably not.

I don't have the 300W, but if I remember correctly my 850W is actually more efficient than the 750W Silencer (so it generates less heat at the same relative output), and I know part of PCP&C's reason for going with those high-flow Delta fans is to live up to the 100% load 100% of the time claim (basically TurboCool is over-built/over-designed to hit that bar). It is possible to buy a more efficient (in terms of noise/CFM) fan as well, which should reduce noise without dramatically compromising airflow, but you'd need to research the part in the PCP&C and figure out what it's specifications are, and then find something quieter with similar airflow characteristics.