If I removed a PSU cover, and used it as is, would there be any problems? The only use I thought of was cooling, therefore could I make a duct to cool a certain part of the PSU? If so what part would that be? Help apprecated..
the function of a PSU cover is to keep fingers away from the high voltage that is floating around on the heatsinks in said PSU. if you touch the insides, you WILL get shocked -- its not like a mobo or hard drive PCB. there have been servral mods where people have removed the cover for space reasons, but they have all made sure nothing will come in contact with the guts. if you just want to show off the insides, get a clear PSU cover (http://xoxide.com/yellowpsumod.html)
One of the main purposes of the psu cover is to stop you shocking the living crap out of yourself, and to stop stray wires making large sparks. Generally the heatsinks form their own semi-ducting and prolly wouldn't mind being caseless at all... pop the top off the psu and see what I mean if you wish. Always discharge the PSU before working on it, unplugged the caps should discharge in ~10 mins, but you can always leave it overnight if you want to be sure it won't kill you (takes all the fun out of it) *see usual this **** can kill you warning*
I'm not aware of the quality of the caps in most PSUs, but it's unlikely all the charge would leak out in 10 minutes...that's an open circuit there. If you turned it off and left everything plugged in, however, it might dissipate in 10 minutes. You can ground a screwdriver by wrapping bare wire on one end of a screwdriver, sticking the other in the third pin on an outlet or the small slot (this is ground, only fused) but it might be a good idea to check to make sure the voltage on the small slot is 0, just incase the guy who wired your house was on crack at the time. Or to be really sure, connect it to a grounded copper water pipe. But you get the idea...then you just take that screwdriver and slide it across the caps on the bottom of the PSU (assuming you took it all the way out). You may or may not hear some cracking or see some sparks.
I think there was some psu review (sorry, I have no link) where it was stated that removing the cover from the analyzed psu does not improve the working temperatures. In fact, the temperature increases some degrees, due to bad air conduction. They explained that without the cover, the air flow was not the adequated. But is a minor topic (i think).
i) The vast majority of PSU's have bleed resistors across the HT DC rails, meaning the caps do not remain charged for any significant length of time. ii) Many (but not all) PSU's have the main heatsinks grounded. Installing and using a PSU in your PC without the top cover isn't a problem.
Its not looks... its space, the cover is a bit bulky. Are there any certain parts of the PSU than should be cooled with the fan? BTW, the fan is an outtake right? (Thanks for your answers)
PSU's dont overheat like prossesers, they just make a lot of heat slowly. as long as there is some air movement over the heat sinks you should be fine. the primary reason PSU's have fans is to vent the hot air from the top of the case (back when they were comming up with AT spec they had great ideas like this ). if your not running near the limit (i.e. using 150 watts of 500) then you can scrap the fan alltogether.
Just be carefull when you open up the cover. Dischage the bigger capacitors by shorting a plastic handle screwdriver across them. I'v still gotten significant sparks out of capacitors after being unplugged for almost a day.
While that was true for the early AT supplies, the later OEM supplies were made to be less noisy and thus do not have as powerful fans, Some of those get REALLY hot even with the fan in place. And removing the fan on a new ATX PSU is usually suicide for the PSU since the fans are allready underdimensioned for newer PSUs, several of my ATX PSUs get hot even at rather low load with their original fans in place, and these are only 300 or 350W ones. Removing the fan from a 500W, even if run lower than max, would overheat it pretty quick. PSUs don't die immediately from heat, but the components get shorter lifetimes from heat, especially the capacitors. And when a PSU dies, it sometimes kills other stuff inside the computer because the voltage peaks on some or all lines.
This might damage the components. I recomend unplugging the power then pressing the power button on the PC a few times to help discharge. When working on a PSU you just need to be sensible and carefull. As for the practicallity of running fanless I agree with Ghlargh that its unwise to do so. PSU will get very hot if you dont have the right airflow.. you need to get that heat out of your case, not just move case air over the PSU. That said you can get away with running a very quiet fan on your PSU with little ill effects, they can survive pretty high operating temperatures.
Survive very high temps they can, but a lifespan shortened they will have, mmm. Sorry, had to do that. Going to see Ep III tomorrow. Anyhow, I am very limited in all the electronics hooplah here, and I can't say much about your capacitors and whatnot, but I can tell you a couple things: 1) Running a PSU without an adequate fan is a great way to add unnecessary heat to your system and shorten the life of your PSU. Not a problem if it's a $10 300w junker, a bigger issue if you just uncased at $100 500w enermax, because it'll last for a LOT less time. From what I understand, heat also adds resistance, which makes the whole PSU have to work harder to produce the same load. On top of that, if space is a problem then you already will have a confined space for all that extra heat to build up, not good for the rest of your system. 2) A great discharging method has already been discussed here: Unplug the pc from the wall, press the power button a few times over a few minutes. The idea here being that you open up the entire circuit, and everything attempting to draw on the PSU at once will quickly drain the caps. Leave it sit for a minute in between presses, and you should be able to discharge the whole thing in a matter of 10 minutes or so. I don't recommend either dragging screwdrivers across the caps or just leaving it sit and trying your luck.
