On Fri, May 10, 2002 at 05:56:14PM -0700, Peter Jay Salzman wrote: > power supply fans generally stay on 24/7. right? > > i have a power supply fan which turns on for the first second or two of > powering up, then it comes to a stop (but in such a way that makes it > look like it wants to turn; it dances a bit). > > if you leave it on for awhile, it'll start spinning again (with an > audible click. sounds like a switch or relay) but only for a few > minutes. it'll stop again. and eventually start up again. > > when you power the system off, it rotates a few times before coming to a > halt. > > > the fan rotates freely when the power is off. > > any ideas? (aside from buying a new supply).
Sounds to me like you have a variable-speed fan, probably temperature-controlled, so that it tries to run as slowly as possible while still keeping the power supply cool. My guess is that the fan's bearings are starting to go out, so when it tries to go at one of its slower speeds, you get the dancing. Then, the power supply heats up, so it goes to a fast speed, and starts running again, cools the supply, and we start the whole cycle over again. You can often replace just the power-supply fan without replacing the old supply. They're standard 80mm fans; the only hassle might be cutting the old power leads and soldering new ones on. -- Samuel Merritt PGP key is at http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~merritt/snmerritt.asc Information about PGP can be found at http://www.mindspring.com/~aegreene/pgp/
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