Power supply fan vs. chassis fan

[TheMelodyMaker]

I need some advice from some of you more experienced techies out there. I discovered tonight that the fan on my server's power supply (at the back) wasn't running, but I wasn't able to get it going again via nudges with a toothpick as usual. So in a pinch I put in a chassis fan, which was laying around not being used for anything else, in the computer (at the front).

Here's my question: Do you guys think that the chassis fan will be a sufficient replacement for the power supply fan for keeping the system cool? The computer is about 5 1/2 years old with a 300 MHz processor in it, if that helps.

Thanks in advance. ^_^

[LorentzForce]

The power supply fan is there to cool the power supply, so you should replace the PSU's fan instead.

You can open the PSU and replace the fan with the chassis one if it's the right size. In fact, they're pretty much the same fans.

[Mithrandir]

Yeah LF is right on the $. There's not enough circulation from the case to the PS to actually get by with out one. In the event you burn out the PS, or blow it by putting in the wrong fan, it's usually cheaper to buy a new case then it is to replace a PS, in my experiance.

[LorentzForce]

Which if your computer's in 300MHz range it should at least some sort of consistency rule for cases. And it won't be hard finding a $10 computer that doesn't work except the case and the PSU in most offline auction sites around various places.

[TheMelodyMaker]

Well, I've been running the server for almost a week now with said chassis fan and lack of power supply fan, and I decided to try to reduce the strain on the power supply a little bit by turning on a feature to switch the hard drive into low-power mode after not being used for 3 minutes. Oddly enough, so far everything's been working fine! The mesh structure holding in the defunct PS fan is only just a little warm, yet I can feel a slight cool breeze coming out of it. It looks like the system is getting sufficiently cooled after all.

I do thank you guys for your input, and if anything goes wrong I'll keep what you've said in mind. Thanks again! ^_^