Hi, I just saw this review in German, where they are testing a 340 watt chieftec/sirtec PSU (the same model that I happen to be an owner of) that has been modded with a papst fan to replace the original one.

To me, this sounds like a great idea, and I'm wondering if this would be difficult/risky/inappropriate to do. Has anyone tried it?

Well duh, here's the link...

http://www.mhz-power.com/index.php?site=testberichte/netzteile/chieftech340w/chieftech340w_1[/url]

I've taken PSUs apart about a million times for cleaning, the only risk to yourself is if you forget to wait until the charge in the capacitors dies down, you risk a harmless buzz. I don't read German so I skipped the article and don't know which fan they use, but in general Papst's silent fans tend to have lower CFM compared to stock fans. If this is the case, there's a slight chance of your PSU overheating and exploding. And of course, you void the warranty by removing the shell and won't get compensation for damage caused to your system.

If I've made it sound dangerous/risky, it's not really, there's just a very small chance that could happen. And it's a very very small chance if you choose a fan that strikes a balance between noise and airflow. It's something where I think the benefits definitely outweigh the risks if you're willing to lose the warranty.

Thanks for the tips.

I suppose I could always minimize the risks involved by ensuring low ambient/case/CPU temps and by not hooking my computer up with a lot of garbage (like CDRs, RAID-stuff and the like).