W
William R. Walsh
Guest
Hi!
years...
First--people complained of fan noise, so manufacturers cut down the voltage
to where the fans were just turning enough to move some air. Naturally this
causes the supply to run hotter. I've seen a few (IBM PS/2 Models 90, 95,
Server 5x0, 7x0, other computers) where a nice thermal control circuit was
included to "throttle" the fan up or down as needed. But thermal controls
cost money and aren't commonly seen. From the PS failures that I see, most
all of them are heat induced--badly 'bulged' capacitors and that sort of
thing.
I have here an HP Vectra VL mini/mid tower PC that is loaded--all the slots
are filled, all the SIMM slots are filled and the CPU was upraded from 233
to 300 MHz--and the power supply fan never even picked up speed once,
despite the fact that the output air was much hotter. I 'fixed' it by wiring
the fan directly to a +12V line in the supply. It's much louder now, but at
least the air coming out is of a reasonable temperature.
Second--the supplies made today, especially in lower end budget box
computers, are just plain cheap. (HP Pavilion supplies seem to be
notoriously cheap and they lead the pack by a wide margin when I think about
what I have replaced...) In the days of older AT supplies, the computer they
came with usually cost a lot more and the overall quality of the components
was much higher. I have loads of older systems using AT-and-similar power
supplies, and only a few have died over the years as compared to modern ATX
supplies...
William
I think this may be due to a couple of things that I've noticed over the
years...
First--people complained of fan noise, so manufacturers cut down the voltage
to where the fans were just turning enough to move some air. Naturally this
causes the supply to run hotter. I've seen a few (IBM PS/2 Models 90, 95,
Server 5x0, 7x0, other computers) where a nice thermal control circuit was
included to "throttle" the fan up or down as needed. But thermal controls
cost money and aren't commonly seen. From the PS failures that I see, most
all of them are heat induced--badly 'bulged' capacitors and that sort of
thing.
I have here an HP Vectra VL mini/mid tower PC that is loaded--all the slots
are filled, all the SIMM slots are filled and the CPU was upraded from 233
to 300 MHz--and the power supply fan never even picked up speed once,
despite the fact that the output air was much hotter. I 'fixed' it by wiring
the fan directly to a +12V line in the supply. It's much louder now, but at
least the air coming out is of a reasonable temperature.
Second--the supplies made today, especially in lower end budget box
computers, are just plain cheap. (HP Pavilion supplies seem to be
notoriously cheap and they lead the pack by a wide margin when I think about
what I have replaced...) In the days of older AT supplies, the computer they
came with usually cost a lot more and the overall quality of the components
was much higher. I have loads of older systems using AT-and-similar power
supplies, and only a few have died over the years as compared to modern ATX
supplies...
William