Stuck Or Sluggish Case Fans

[opalhort]

Can a fan in the PC case which is stuck or running slow/sluggish (due to dirt in the axle) draw more power from the PSU (Power Supply Unit) than it should?

Whenever I have a stuck fan the heat in the PSU goes up and recently, due to two stuck fans, one PC shut down (PSU cut off) frequently.

After disconnecting all case fans everything is working fine and CPU and MB heat sensors report normal low temps, PSU temp is also normal.

I have 450W PSUs for the PCs which each have two HDDs, DWD writer, Floppy, 2GB RAM and regular VGA card. This should be sufficient, OR?

The cases are GVIEW which have four fans all running on one loop-through line from the PSU.

opalhort

[verydumbubba]

I believe we alluded to this in another post - the PSU is the heart of any PC - toss it and buy another before you burn the mobo and the CPU.

Bubba

[opalhort]

I believe we alluded to this in another post - the PSU is the heart of any PC - toss it and buy another before you burn the mobo and the CPU.

Bubba

Yes I know it is related to my previous posts.

The point is that the PSUs are testing 100% OK. Only if I plug in the questionable fans do I have problems.

My question was simply if a stuck fan draws additional power from the PSU and thus could cause an overload.

If this is the case then the PSU did the right job by shutting down and protecting itself and the PC.

opalhort

[PastEgo]

ummm why have you not done the obvious

take the fans out clean them and lubricate the bearings if you can

then restest

mind you the obvious is a bit too obvious sometimes

[verydumbubba]

It does not matter which fans/s are bad or noisy - dump them - all the previous defrag/chkdsk probs are related to cold boots and/or freezes. Heat kills, all heat. Of course any device that is compromised draws/uses more power.

What do you want?! Proof?! Fried everything?!

Bubba

[garyh]

The stuck fans won't draw enough current to cause a power supply failure but the resulting heat from no air flow will do lots of damage as per previous posts. why the hel_l don't you just replace them, they are cheap, much cheaper than new power supply, motherboard, CPU, video card etc.

It is cheap, quick and easy to fix why <deleted> around with it???????????????????

[opalhort]

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes I've done the obvious and replaced the fans since I have a large stockpile of new spares at home.

And I also clean them and occasionally grease them, but this can only be done 2-3 times then they need to be replaced.

It was also my understanding that, as 'garyh' said "The stuck fans won't draw enough current to cause a power supply failure " but I made an experiment by connecting one stuck fan (heat was no issue since I used a desk fan to blow into the open case) and immediately the heat in the PSU went up considerably.

My question was purely for my technical education, not to solve a problem.

Are there any better quality fans around with a longer life span than the cheap 'made in China' stuff?

Thanks.

opalhort

Edited July 28, 2009 by opalhort