My power supply fan is completely dead. I'm waiting for a new PSU to arrive in a few days time though it's still providing power. The parts in the case were getting hot to the touch (I think I smelt burning plastic at one point) so I've removed one side casing for ventilation. How dangerous is it to run the computer like this for a few days? Even with the casing off, the PSU and hard drives are quite warm to the touch.
The PSU fan is really only to stop the PSU from over heating and dying and shouldnt really be relied upon to keep the system cooled you culd have fitted a new fan yourself in the PSU although i had a nasty electric shock awhile ago doing this. In my oppinion you should be fine for a few days as long as you keep the rest of the system well ventilated and watch teh temps. I think the worst that could happen is the old PSU dying and the computer shutting down although there could be a possability of th PSU shorting out other components in the process but i am unsure of this.
My psu fan died, so i replaced with one i had lying around. For some reason i kept the dead fan, and a couple of weeks ago i tested it. Worked fine. Bit of a mystery.
dont run the psu without fan for too long i had a psu that had a new fan in it but i think forgot to connect the power to the fan or something( it had to be connected outside the psu case) and i burnt out(well thats what i think happened) a 350watt psu, well it stank and the computer wouldnt switch on, but thankfully i had a spare psu, get the fan working as quickly as possible it saves having to fork out 30 +notes for a new psu when a fan can so easily be replaced.
