After recovering a wonderful semi-modular power supply from my parent's old PC, I noticed that the unit's fan made a dull clicking when Icarus was powered on. Given the PSU is a couple of years old, it's understandable that perhaps the fan had become worn out and potentially was nearing the end of it's life. However, given the major improvement in cable management afforded by the PSU, I was loathe to discard the unit and return the old, non-modular, Enermax PSU I'd been using previously.
I tried to find out if Cooler Master would have any spare parts they could ship, but this seemed unlikely given the age of the model. Instead I managed to find a report of somebody replacing the fan with one sourced from a 3rd party; so I decided I'd do the same. This should have been a relatively simple task, however, the fan used in the PSU was a frustratingly rare 135mm model instead of the usual 120mm or 140mm variety. Unable to find the exact model suggested in the forum post I'd seen, I ended up purchasing an LY 13525M12S from an Ebay seller in the US and a 3-pin to 2-pin adapter
, as the PSU only has a 2-pin fan header.
Now, it's worth noting that I don't recommend cracking open a PSU and fiddling around inside; the capacitors inside them can hold charge for a long time after being unplugged. I saw people recommend not undertaking any work inside a PSU unless it's been left standing unplugged for several days, while others recommended pressing the power button on your PC whilst the wall socket is off in order to discharge any residual current. I did the latter and also followed some advice that I'd read suggesting that you should really only touch the components that need touching; in my case the fan and fan header. After a tense half an hour where I didn't electrocute myself, I managed to replace the fan and reinstall the PSU back into Icarus. Now, when idling the system runs whisper quiet again!
