At 05:54 PM 11/12/00 -0500, you wrote:
I've got one here on my vintage 1993 486/33, I've unplugged the fan on it coz it was noisy and I'm too lazy to go to the basement, hunt for a voltmeter, soldering iron, and play the old 12->7V conversion game again. So I'm wondering what are the chances it'll melt down, burn out, overheat? Cause a fire?
Have you considered replacing the fan? after 7 years its probably a little worn, and a new ball bearing fan shouldn't be too expensive.
Otherwise cleaning the dust and fluff might help. Made my old sun 3/50 barely audible (thats what 13 years of crud does to a fan.)
On a couple machines I ended up replacing the punched metal finger guard with a wire one... more air gets through. I powered off the machine and removed all the components (Don't trust metal filings in cases, and don't trust a vacuum to pick them all up) then cut off the grille, then drilled four holes for the wire fan grille which I'd salvaged from an XT I think.
Some people have suggested putting the PSU outside the case with no fan - I don't like this cos its messy, and you'd probably need to lengthen all your cables. Thats too much like hard work!
But one important thing - its just a 486!
I have a dozen at work that I use to hold up an old door - makes a most
excellent table. If it does die badly then just go find another one or two.
There's not too much power-hungry gear in this machine, the hard drive spins down and the monitor blanks, the cpu doesn't have a fan, etc.
The monitor doesn't use power from the PSU... the power output socket is simply switched from the front in most 486s. (some had a jumper lead which could shut off the monitor power socket if the video card or motherboard supported it - power saving before VESA and DPMS.)
Never underestimate the power of a massively huge heatsink. If you find a totally mofo heatsink (you'd know one when you see it) then grab it and use that somewhere.
I'm hoping there's a relationship between power drawn from the P/S and heat generated, anybody confirm this?
Yes - but its not linear... halve the current drawn and heat output would drop by about 5 to 10 %
-- Criggie