Anyone have any tips on swapping a power supply?
#1
I have this Antec case + power supply, and I just bought this Fortron 400W PSU to replace it. The 350W Antec works just fine, but it always makes a faint high-pitched whine that is really annoying me. I bought the 400W Fortron on recommendation from a few friends that said it was a solid PSU at a decent price.

Anyhow, tomorrow I plan on swapping out the PSUs, but I have never done such a thing before. I know my way around a case pretty well, but this is one thing I am a complete newbie at. PSUs have an awful lot of wires coming out of the back of them. Should I label the cables as I'm extracting the old ones so I can easily match up the new ones? Should I take a few pictures first so I have a bit of a roadmap to go by? SHOULD I GRAB HOLD OF THE OLD CABLES WITH MY MIGHTY FIST AND YANK THEM OUT LIKE THE PATHETIC WEEDS THAT THEY ARE, WHILE ORDERING A NEW MUG OF MEAD FROM THE NEAREST WENCH AND SINGING SONGS OF MY ANCESTORS?

Err, fan side goes down, right?
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#2
If you haven't been here already, I suggest you take a look. The PSU 101 topic has just about everything you might ever want to know about PSUs.

Anyways, if you bought a retail PSU (which I'm guessing you did) then it should come with an instruction manual that has diagrams of what connects where. Follow that and wear your little anti-shock wrist strap (to be on the safe side) when you connect to the MB and you should be fine.
Alea Jacta Est - Caesar
Guild Wars account: Lurker Wyrm
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#3
Quote:If you haven't been here already, I suggest you take a look. The PSU 101 topic has just about everything you might ever want to know about PSUs.

Anyways, if you bought a retail PSU (which I'm guessing you did) then it should come with an instruction manual that has diagrams of what connects where. Follow that and wear your little anti-shock wrist strap (to be on the safe side) when you connect to the MB and you should be fine.

Thanks for the link. The PSU is OEM, so it came with nothing but a bunch of packing peanuts and a cardboard box.
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#4
Quote:Thanks for the link. The PSU is OEM, so it came with nothing but a bunch of packing peanuts and a cardboard box.

Luckily most plugs don't fit into things that it would be really bad for them to fit into. At least, that's what I've always counted on. :P
Why can't we all just get along

--Pete
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#5
Quote:Thanks for the link. The PSU is OEM, so it came with nothing but a bunch of packing peanuts and a cardboard box.
Penuts... oof. You're going to want to be very careful with those things as they're usually not static shielded.

These days it's pretty hard to connect stuff incorrectly, so while you'll want to apply enough pressure to make the connection snug, you don't need to use a hammer. Also, if you still have the motherboard manual it should have detailed descriptions and diagrams of the power connections.

Edit: Does anyone else see this thread as having 0 views?
Alea Jacta Est - Caesar
Guild Wars account: Lurker Wyrm
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#6
Quote:Edit: Does anyone else see this thread as having 0 views?
I believe that the forum software doesn't display number of views until a certain amount has been reached.
Hugs are good, but smashing is better! - Clarence<!--sizec--><!--/sizec-->
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#7
Quote:Penuts... oof. You're going to want to be very careful with those things as they're usually not static shielded.

The PSU did come in an anti-static bag.
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#8
Quote:I believe that the forum software doesn't display number of views until a certain amount has been reached.

It only updates the thread views every n minutes, to avoid excessive server load.
Why can't we all just get along

--Pete
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#9
Well, that was a lot easier than I initially thought it would be. The bundle of various wires and connectors on a PSU is pretty intimidating to look at, but it's not so bad after you realize that most of them won't even be used.

The only thing that made me nervous was that there was a cable that ran from the old PSU to something called "SFAN1" on my motherboard, but my new PSU lacked such a cable. I checked and re-checked my motherboard manual in all its glorious Engrish, and found that "SFAN1" was some kind of fan speed monitor thingie.
[Image: sfan14ga.png]

I connected everything else and plugged it in anyways because I like to live on the wild side. I left the case open so I could be sure that all the fans were properly spinning just in case it was a power supply cable to a VERY IMPORTANT FAN. It obviously wasn't, because the case fan, CPU cooler fan, and northbridge fan were all spinning quite nicely. I checked with a diagnostics program (Everest), and it quite clearly showed the fan speeds and temperatures of everything. It all looks good. I'm still not sure what that cable was used for:huh:



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#10
Quote: I'm still not sure what that cable was used for:huh:

Presumably to monitor the speed of the power supply fan....
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#11
Quote:Presumably to monitor the speed of the power supply fan....

You are a much smarter person than me.
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