Sparkle 530 Fan broke.

[GotNoRice]

I got a Sparkle 530watt from newegg last week and just got the chance to put it in my fileserver. After the fileserver had been on for about 6 hours, it started making this really loud noise. It sounded like what it sounds like when a wire inside your case gets sucked into one of your case fans. Ended up being that one of the fans on my power supply broke. From the center of the fan, there is a 4 way crack going outwards. This was causing the fan to be off-balanced and rattle.

Well, I guess I could have just RMA’d it or something, but I didn’t really want to wait. I opened it up, took the old fan out, and went to put a new fan in when I realized that the old fan was smaller than normal, ugh. It was like 20mm thick instead of the normal 25mm or whatever.

Anyway, I ended up just taking it out. In a regular power supply, that only has one fan, I wouldn’t have even considered just taking this out, but this is a sealed powersupply (meaning it doesn’t have random vent holes everywhere) and has both an intake and an exhaust fan. Even with the exhaust fan removed, there is still airflow through the powersupply (though obviously not as much as there was before).

Do you think I’ll be fine just leaving it with only that one fan or what?

Cliff notes:
Exhaust fan in powersupply broke.
Replacement I thought would fit was too thick.
Removed it instead of replacing it.
Wondering if the intake fan alone is enough to cool the powersupply.

EDIT: Here is the link of it with pictures so you can see what I mean about it having an intake fan in addition to the exhaust fan.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-489&depa=0

 

[FLECOM]

you could always put a regular (25mm) fan on the outside of the psu where the fan was before? like screw it from the inside of the psu out? did that make sence...

anyway i did that once when something like that happened to one of my crappy 500watters in my servers

 

[Clownboat]

If you absolutely have to do this, I would highly advise switching the fans, if they're the same size.

Exhaust fans are much more necessary than intake fans -- when air is blown out, air will naturally be sucked in through any openings, i.e. the opening in the back that would exist if you moved that fan to replace the exhaust fan. Intake fans only exist to speed that process.

 

[diredesire]

If you absolutely have to do this, I would highly advise switching the fans, if they're the same size.

Exhaust fans are much more necessary than intake fans -- when air is blown out, air will naturally be sucked in through any openings, i.e. the opening in the back that would exist if you moved that fan to replace the exhaust fan. Intake fans only exist to speed that process.

Couldn't you say the same thing in the other direction?

Like FLECOM suggested, you coudl just screw a/the fan to the outside of the PSU chassis (depending on the case design)

 

[Ice Czar]

it would depend on the static pressure in the case
Parallel and Series Operation
Quick and easy fan/sink characterization
(consider a PSU enclosure the same sort of restrictive environment as a heatsink)

a higher static pressure is typically advantageous when its a restrictive environment
like in the PSU, off hand Id say that your likely to have a fairly open environment and other escape points in the mobo area, so the required airflow might not be enough, your likely to see a more narrow operating range for a given ambient and load on the PSU

few more links
Solving High Altitude Cooling Problems
Stall of Axial Flow Fans

personally Id either replace it or do the mod FLECOM suggested