Upside-Down PSU

[Crazydog115]

In this thread

PSU fan loose?

I said my PSU was making a rattling noise. Some people thought it was the PSU vibrating against the case, but it isn't.

I took the PSU out of the case, and noticed the noise only happens when the fan grating is facing down.

Now here's my question:
Is it safe to have the PSU in my case with the fan grating facing the top of my case? There is about 1 - 1.5 cm between the PSU and the case.
Is this ok, or will there be overheating problems?

[eyeCpc]

It certainly doesn't allow much room for air flow. I would try to tighten up the grate or live with it until a later upgrade was in the works. But simply having a supply upside down? Have a look inside an Antec 900 model case. The supply is upside down at the bottom.

[turtile]

It should be fine facing the other way around. I'd ask support from the manufacturer about it to see why it would happen. There could be something wrong with it.

[veedubfreak]

I have run into this problem on some of the old dell power supplies. If possible remove the grating and bend the tabs so that the grating is farther away from the fan. What often happens is the fan ages and gets a little more play and will just start rubbing the grating.

[Trotter]

flip the PSU and cut it a blowhole for intake. It will run cooler and more efficiently.

[eyeCpc]

Simply removing the grating itself will eliminate the noise if the fan itself isn't slopping around from wear. The grating already covers a large intake opening just like on any other supply.

[StealthTools]

The idiots I bought my computer from (back when I knew nothing of what a CPU was and stuff...) actually had the PSU fan facing to the top of my case..it had about a 1" gap between the fan and the top of my case... the PSU under a lot of stress ran fairly warm to the touch but it didn't hurt anything.. and when I started learning about things I bought a GPU and when I installed that I flipped the PSU and now my computer runs about 10C cooler..

I also took the PSU apart and cleaned the literal MOUNDS of dust out of it... that helped alot.

Also.. yea.. you take a lot of different PSU's and apply a small amount of pressure to them and they will rattle... most of them are poorly made like this.. bend the tabs and you shall be set free.

The PSU is 450W

Originally Posted by Trotter

cut it a blowhole for intake. It will run cooler and more efficiently.

Havn't tried it.. guess that would work.. But I wonder if it will be more dangerous especially if you get small metal shards in the PSU... and what about dust? Unless you have the right materials you may end up creating a home-made mosquito zapper.


And look at the date of this thread... sheesh... guess there will be no reply to this...

[sinci]

Yeah, I can't think of a reason why it isn't bad.
Except that the airflow kinda sucks the way it is...
Just flip it over I guess =]
Use some mechanics x]

[eyeCpc]

If you were running an Antec 900 with the top of the supply facing upward with a bottom fan that would be just under an inch there. There are supplies seeing intake fans facing the front of the case rather then on the bottom side to get away with mounting in tight places.

For using a hole saw or another tool to cut an opening you would first remove the covering for the supply completely and work on that separately to avoid any chance of metal slivers ending up around the transformer as well as just having debris lingering around. Spending the time to clean all of the buildup out of the supply itself will do the most to see it run cooler to start with.