"jakdedert" wrote
"Caroline" wrote
wrote
snip
For the original poster, start by checking that all of the fans are
still working. In particular the CPU fan. It's more likely that
you've got a bad fan than a bad power supply.

The fan works fine, thanks.

Sometimes I get a weird noise at startup that seem to be coming from the
power
supply (possibly specifically its fan). Sounds like a motor scraping
against a
casing? The noise goes away after a few minutes. Been like this for a
couple of
years.

But it's too much to ask anyone to diagnose something like this sight
unseen.
Just noting...

Actually, that one's easy. The lube in the fan is drying up, and it takes a
bit of time to warm up to the point where it flows and the fan works
quietly. The sound you hear is either the bearings scraping metal-to-metal;
or else the bearings themselves have worn themselves to the point that the
fan blade is no longer centered and is scraping against the housing until
air flow dynamically centers it.

Either way, a new fan is indicated. Relubrication is possible, but may be
beyond your skills; and is sometimes only a stop-gap solution (I've had
pretty good luck at it...about four out of five....). Of course, a new
power supply would 'include' a new fan....

I gave the re-lubrication a shot on Saturday. Took off the casing, took out the
power supply and removed its side panels, took off the fan grille, studied the
setup looking for bearings, pulled up the sticker in the center, and saw the
center move when I pushed the fan. Looked about as close as I could get to a
bearing. Put a few drops of "Zoom" oil in.

Sounds better. Haven't had the really big noise I have heard now and then in the
past.

Still shopping for power supplies. Found a Fortron at www.newegg.com IIRC for
around $40 total that I think I'm going to go for.

Thanks.