[SOLVED] Loud PSU fan

[Texancowboy]

A couple times a day, my PSU starts making a really loud noise. It only lasts a couple minutes, and usually only does so when the PC is idle. Turning the PC on it's side temporarily solves the problem, but it starts happening again a couple hours later.

What could be the problem?

 

[Aeacus]

There can be 2x issues:
* your PSU heats up and PSU fan starts spinning faster
* your PSU fan is dying

What's your PSU make and model (or part number)? Full system specs would also help.

 

[Texancowboy]

It's the 550w bronze. I can't remember the model. I'll look when I get home.

Do you know why it would stop when I tilt it on it's side? It also stops when I open the case and push up on the back of the PSU

 

[Aeacus]

Without knowing the PSU make and model, i can't say which fan and in turn, which fan bearing is used. Though, out of 4x common fan bearings: sleeve, ball, fluid-dynamic and mag-lev; only sleeve bearing has issues depending on the fan orientation.

Sleeve bearings last the most when fan is in vertical position (about 40.000 hours). If the sleeve bearing fan is horizontal, it's lifespan is easily cut in half (about 20.000 hours) and after some time, fan does start making bearing noises.
I once had PSU with sleeve bearing fan (old Codegen unit) and since fan was sitting horizontally, it started to make noises quite randomly. Tilting the PC/PSU or slowing down the fan (i put a finger at fan center to slow it down) did fix the noise issue short term. But noise always came back.

Fan bearing lifespan is as follows:
sleeve bearing: 20.000 - 40.000 hours
ball bearing: 60.000 - 75.000 hours
fluid-dynamic bearing: 100.000 - 300.000 hours
mag-lev bearing: 300.000+ hours

The Seasonic PSUs all 3x of my PCs use (Skylake, Haswell and AMD, full specs with pics in my sig), have fluid-dynamic bearing fans in them. Making the fan very long lasting and quiet as well. While the case fans that i have, are using either fluid-dynamic bearing (NZXT AER140 RGB fans) or mag-lev bearing (Corsair ML Pro LED series).