Can I change PSU fan?

Britton30 said:

Never discharge a capacitor by shorting the terminals, it can over heat rapidly and even explode hot materials in your face.

I never realised that but im a sparky by trade so i am more used to dealing with mains electrics than low voltage stuff and thats how we discharge stuff in work, mainly HV caps in microwave and similar machinery they charge at 3000 to 6000 volts and make a pretty flash and a bang when you discharge them if there full but i accept they are totally different bits of kit to psu caps

So i apologise if i gave a bummer there
You know what thet say about assumptions

Pauly are you kidding, discharging with a wire, as an electronic engineer, there is no such discharging method ever heard, discharging a HV capacitor need an electronic circuit with a resistor so the energy inside the capacitor would change into heat in a period of time. in physics we have a theory that energy wont disappear in the space, and it would just change from one form to another. like from electricity into heat or mechanical energy.

Bungee, if you want to clean your psu, as previous discussion i had with this forum guys, there is nothing to worry of, the capacitor are shielded with plastic, and be aware of touching its tips. the fan has a socket and you can remove it then clean it with a tissue and using oil in the middle part of it, called its router, you should remove its label, under that, there is a plastic cap. you should remove it and pour just one drop of oil in it. that simple...
but be careful.

   Warning

Opening a PSU can be life threatening if you touch or bump a capacitor.

It is not recommended to do if you dont care so since it could easily kill you.

I'm an old time electroncis and RF guy. I used have a General Class Ham License (W5DVO and ZD8JES) and a 2nd Class FCC Radiotelephone license. And, worked at Ascension Island on UHF command systems (10 KW transmitter) for the Apollo project.

In the Air Force, with high powered comm transmitters such as the old BC610, we used a grounding "stick" - a metal probe with a wooden handle and a ground clip from the metal probe that was clipped to ground on the transmitter. We would ground the plate cap (HV) on the transmitter tube or other areas before we would do anything inside the transmitter. In my own Ham equipment, I only used a jumper to ground things when working on it.

If you are very very determined to do it yourself and don't care about risking your own life to change a noisy fan, use heavy-duty rubberized gloves AND rubber boots. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you have to avoid at all costs to use your body to make a circuit that allows the current from a capacitor to move through your chest (heart) to go either to the ground or to return into the PSU (on another component/contact).
In case of a discharge it will hurt a lot, but won't kill as it won't get through the heart. Current goes by the lower-resistance route, it isn't an evil monster with a life of its own. Say you touch the device with a bare arm but with boots on, only that arm gets electrocuted (a small patch of skin actually).

But screwing up royally and ending up sitting on the floor with the open PSU falling on you with all capacitors crackling with evil sparks remains a risk.

mmkarimi said:

Pauly are you kidding, discharging with a wire, as an electronic engineer, there is no such discharging method ever heard, discharging a HV capacitor need an electronic circuit with a resistor so the energy inside the capacitor would change into heat in a period of time. in physics we have a theory that energy wont disappear in the space, and it would just change from one form to another. like from electricity into heat or mechanical energy.

Bungee, if you want to clean your psu, as previous discussion i had with this forum guys, there is nothing to worry of, the capacitor are shielded with plastic, and be aware of touching its tips. the fan has a socket and you can remove it then clean it with a tissue and using oil in the middle part of it, called its router, you should remove its label, under that, there is a plastic cap. you should remove it and pour just one drop of oil in it. that simple...
but be careful.

WARNING Dangerous info here!!

mmkarimi I'm not going to be pulled into your fantasy world. Try googling the subject.

Thank you for your help guys.

I will definitely not open it my self, neither I am going to get a new one. 750W is more than enough for my system and NZXT's PSUs are good enough (at least that's what they say at jonnyguru.com, best PSU reviews around).

I did some research on the fan the PSU comes equipped with, and these ADDA fans are pretty standard for PSUs, even for higher end ones, another reason for not going for a new, more expensive one.

A certified tech will do the modd for around 50 bucks, the new fan will be 20 bucks at the most. A new good quality 1000W PSU would be around 230 (Argentina pricing).
That settles it for me.

Thanks again for all your help and advice.

J