Noisy power supply

Hamju

Hey quick question. The fan of the power supply in my wife's computer sometimes makes a whining noise. It sounds a bit like the fan is out of alignment or it might just be really dirty. If I hit it it stops, but eventually it starts up again. Now, I know that smacking PSUs is generally a bad idea so I was wondering if there was anything I could safely do to fix it or should I just man up and buy a new one?

Hamju

I'd hate to shamelessly bump this, but I really think this should be an easy question to answer...

Crashtard

You can try to blow it out with an air can. Probably it's starting to give up and it's just a matter of time till it goes. I don't know a "lot" about power supplies, but the last time I had one that made noises like that it died after a month or so. Probably better off to replace it now if that's the case. I don't know how you'd go about testing something like that though to be sure.

wabbiteh

If it's just the fan dying, you can pop open the power supply and replace it (I'd recommend looking around silentpcreview.com 's forums to see how to do it) - it's not as daunting a task as it may seem at first glance, depending on the power supply. Just make sure that you are very careful around the capacitors - discharge them first, and avoid touching them, as they can give a lethal shock even when the PSU is unplugged. While it's relatively safe if you take precautions, if you're not comfortable with it, then you may just want to skip opening it up.
Of course, that's assuming that the fan is the problem, which it might not be - I don't know enough about PSUs to tell from what you described.