How do I change the fan in this old Compaq?

[racketboy]

I have an old Compaq Deskpro 4000S 5166X that I'm using as a cheap server.

(It's the Pentium machine I found in my dumpster)

I think the case/power supply fan is dying.

How can I replace it?

You can see it here

It looks like it is screwed in from the inside of the power supply (the thing in the corner.

It's the only fan in the whole box and I don't want the power supply to overheat.

Can it be replaced by a normal case fan?

How do I take the old one off and put the new one

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

Just go get a new fan that is the same size... most likely 80mm or whatever. unscrew that one, screw the other one on, if it connects to wherever it gets it's power with a little plug then it should be fairly generic, if not you may need to solder (well you could just wrap the wires and put electrical tape around them I 'spose) them to the wires it is currently using. Overall shouldn't be that difficult, I've never actually changed the fan to a power suply but I've removed them plenty of times, especially out of AT power supplies which I'm guessing that is.

 

[racketboy]

How do I get the screws off and on though? Like I said it looks like the screwheads are inside the PSU.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

It is entirely possible they are, which would mean you need to probably remove the PSU and open it up (careful) and unscrew it (careful) then attach new one screw it back on (careful) and close it up and remount it back in place. Overall shouldn't be too hard an operation, just be careful about where you are jabbing your screw driver around in there.

 

[racketboy]

cool thanks for your help

but I'm SCARED about the whole power supply thing, Scared0o0Rabbit

sorry I couldn't help myself

I might need to ask some of the IT guys at work for some help with that

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

it's really not that big of a deal, though if that's AT like I suspect it is you may have trouble finding a replacement power supply. one thing you could try is if you have a dremel... remove the PSU from your case, and cut the fan off... though I'm not sure how you'd attach a new one then.

 

[racketboy]

what's "AT"?

and why would I need a new PSU?

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

AT was the standard for motherboard's and powersupplies and connectors and cases and all that several years ago, ATX is what's primarily used now. I haven't seen an AT power supply available in a long time. The reason you might need a new one is if you can't change the fan for some reason(not likely), or if something goes wrong with teh fan change and it destroys teh PSU.

 

[racketboy]

did you look at the picture?

I've never seen a triangle power supply before

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

Yeah, that'd be fun to replace, you might ahve to use a square one and have it sticking out the back a bit lol. However the goal isn't to replace the whole unit.... just the fan

.

 

[Gallstaff]

Originally posted by racketboy@Jul 17, 2003 @ 04:53 PM

I have an old Compaq Deskpro 4000S 5166X that I'm using as a cheap server.

(It's the Pentium machine I found in my dumpster)

I think the case/power supply fan is dying.

How can I replace it?

You can see it here

It looks like it is screwed in from the inside of the power supply (the thing in the corner.

It's the only fan in the whole box and I don't want the power supply to overheat.

Can it be replaced by a normal case fan?

How do I take the old one off and put the new one

Dude what in the hell happened to your mobo heatsink it looks like the crap got beaten out of it.

 

[racketboy]

actually that's just another system that looks like mine

but that's just the way the heatsink looks

 

[racketboy]

Woohoo! I fixed it

Turns out I just needed to get into the BIOS (which isn't easy on those old Compaqs) and go into the Power Management and turn off any power saving features.

I guessed right that it was going into power save mode whenever it wasn't in DOS. Since I'm running 2K, which isn't based off DOS, it would always shut off the fan.

Yeah for me!

Thanks for your help though, guys!