I just got the Liberty 400W PSU in my SFF.
The stock 120mm fan is slightly louder than the Seasonic, and I want to change out the 120mm fan.

Has anyone done this and knows exactly how the fan connects?
Before I crack the seal and invalidate the warranty, I'd like to know if I can just use a 3 pin connector, or need a 3 to 2 adaptor.

My Nexus 120mm is sleeved and has a 3 pin, so it would be great if inside the Liberty the connector is 3 pin.

The Liberty stock 120mm fan is 800-1200 rpm, where the Nexus is 500-1000 rpm. I imagine there may also be a slight voltage disparity, and the feedback to the thermister may be an issue, but it shouldnt be a big deal.

The connector is a 3 pin, but smaller than a standard 0.1" pitch connector. I've seen adapters posted before, but don't remember where.

Wow, thanks for the photo Frank.

Now to find the adapter, or make my own.

Well I received my Nexus 120mm silent fan, hit radio shack, got some solder, and heatshrink. Opted to cut and solder wire lead instead of trying to buy an adapter.

The Liberty stock 120mm fan was 0.3A, as is the Nexus. Thanks for mentioning to check amperage.

The Nexus is up to 1000 rpm, while the Liberty Stock says up to 2400 rpm and is somewhat loud.

After the swap, initially the Nexus did not spin up. I gave the fan a tap and it started spinning. Asus Probe II said the rpm was 300 initially and it soon went up to 600. I've been load testing it, and the fan will range from 550 to 700 rpm and is whisper quiet. There doesn't seem to be a lot of heat build up.

The stock Liberty would spin 1200 rpm, and on load maybe went up to 1300 rpm. So I essentially cut the rpm's in half.

Using Folding@Home to load test, and will run BF2 to add GPU heat in the mix.

This is an older thread, but I just wanted to chime in for those considering the Liberty fan swap.

I have the Liberty 620 and unless my model is different the 3-pin connector does not have the same layout as a standard 3-pin fan. The red and black wires are reversed. Normally, a fan goes [RPM]-[RED]-[BLACK] where as the Enermax Liberty connector goes [RPM]-[BLACK]-[RED]. If you look closely, you can make this out in the photo posted in this thread.

I did not notice this at first and when I plugged in the removed Enermax fan into my power supply to examine its noise characterstics, the fan was immediately fried.

I ended up cutting off the connector on the Enermax fan and making an adapter from one of those 3-pin to Molex connectors you get with most fans. This way, I did not have to mod the fan I put in and it gives me an easy way to try new fans with the Liberty if my initial fan attempt doesn't work.

At this point, with the original Enermax fan toasted, I had the necessary motivation to go forward with the fan swap I started with a Scythe SFB-E (1200rpm) fluid dynamic bearing fan. This fan is extremely smooth with almost 0 bearing noise and good airflow at the full 12V. Unfortunately, when I booted my system the fan was not getting enough voltage to start. Since the Liberty doesn't even send 5V until somewhere after 150W, this was understandable. I ended up trying a Yate Loon D12SL-12 next. This fan has a higher top-end at 1350rpm and starts at a wide range of voltages. Surprisingly, the Yate Loon did not start immediately, but after 2-3 minutes gets enough voltage and begins barely spinning. The power supply remains cool to the touch (bottom chamber of P180) and the exhaust air is only slightly warm. I would prefer a fan that starts immediately, but I am willing to give it a try. My systems stays on 24/7 in a hot apartment and is subjected to multiple users and gaming, so I think I'll know in the short term if the fan isn't providing enough cooling.

I matched wire color instead of pin position for my swap.
Also the fan doesnt get enough voltage to spin (Nexus 120mm silent fan) up until 29C on my PWR temp reading using sensorview. Which is fine by me, on a cold morning, it spins when it needs to and tops out at only 770rpm, which is a gentle whoosing sound.

After running the Yate Loon D12SL-12 fan in my Enermax Liberty for a few days now, I moved the rpm wire coming from the PSU to the chassis fan connector on my motherboard. Since the PSU fan connector doesn't report RPMs, I wanted to move it and start monitoring the fan speed.

The fan runs about 750-800rpm during and immediately after some intensive gaming. I removed the wire grill to allow a little less impedance to the air flow. I'll report back if my PSU fries itself in the short term.

Well, you have not reported back, I suppose that is a good thing. I'm thinking of doing this swap soon with my Liberty 500W. But I run mine close to capacity - Opteron 165 + 8800GTX + etc... so I'm slightly concerned with long term stability. Thanks.

If your spec is as in your sig, your max draw will be somewhere around 345W, which is high but well within the capabilities of the Liberty 500.

Sorry for the late reply.

The PSU is still running fine and I have since upgraded my system to a Core 2 Duo (guess I better fix the sig).

I do recommend the fan swap since the Yate Loon D12 is such a versatile and high-quality fan. However, there a couple caveats-- 1) The fan does not always run, it shuts off when the computer is in light-usage and 2) Running a sleeve bearing fan in that position means it won't last forever.

I realize the fan not starting at light load might scare some people, but the PSU has not given me any stability problems and the exhaust, when the fan does come on, is rather cool.

I should have said -
"But I run mine closer to capacity - Opteron 165 + 8800GTX + 5 HDDs (soon to be 6)."

I realize I still have some headroom. I just wanted to stress the fact mine would be more heavily loaded more often, not that I'm maxing it. Thanks.

Great, good to hear, thanks for the update. I'll do my swap soon then.

i have also swapped a yate loon 120mm into my 400W liberty. runs just fine. sometimes, the PSU is running so cool that the fan doesn't even spin cause it's not getting enough voltage. but once the heat gets turned up, the fan will start spinning...

my solution to the plug problem was a little more brute force. i changed the wires around first, and then i just cut off all the plastic stuff around the pins that was blocking the fan plug. the pins are actually the right spacing for a normal 3 pin fan, it's just that the plastic around the pins is different. hard to describe without a clear picture.

but i highly recommend a fan swap if you're confident that you and your parts are safe.

I read about your swap, and asked you a question about it in your thread Thanks for the info.

Hey, thanks again. I did my swap tonight...it's much quieter now (I can't even tell if it is ramping up, a little scary )...much quieter!

Hey miahallen... i JUST read the question in the other thread so i didn't get to reply. i'm glad to hear the fan swap went well... how did you end up solving the plug issue?

heh... maybe it's just psychological, but i had the same perception too... that the fan doesn't ramp up anymore... weird...

Just chopped the plug off the stock fan and chopped the leads off the YL, then connected the stock fan's plug with crimp connections. Worked fine, and when I powered up for the first time, the fan started spinning right away Maybe I'm lucky? Althought...the fan is out of sight (facing down in the P180), so maybe it just started spinning when I reached in to feel it? Beats me, but it's working

Here is a picture of my wiring & finished product.

After reading through this thread, I decided to give the fan swap a shot. I bought a few Yate Loon D12SL from directcanada.com for $3 bucks a pop. Great, fast service by the way. These fans are supposed to max out at 1350 RPM.

Anyways, I cut the wires, soldered them together and all went smoothly. It's very quiet now, much better than the stock fan.

The only problem (I don't really know if it's a problem), is that it doesn't always spin like some others have already stated. I have a fairly basic system, so my Watts aren't very high, so it doesn't send enough voltage.

Some days, I'll turn my computer on, and it'll spin, some days it won't. It doesn't really make any sense. If it starts off, it will never turn on. If it starts on, it will never turn off. It doesn't seem to be based on any power needs or heat.

Should I be concerned?

just swapped mine with the fan that came with my ninja. i have a liberty 400. mine doesnt spin up either on boot unless i give it a nudge, but im not that worried.

After having my fan swap for about a month now I realize that when I'm doing anything really intensive like a photoshop filter on a huge image, or whatever, my fan will spin up when it needs to.

My PSU is always cool to the touch, so I'm actually fairly happy with this result. Go fan swap!

So, concluding from a technical point of view one could say that you all made your Liberty semi-passive with a low fan-switching threshold.

I would have absolutely no doubt about that working fine because the fan voltage is not load-controlled but temperature-controlled. So when it gets too hot, it will get more voltage and spin faster (or start spinning).

Be VERY careful with fan swap in Liberty.
Link.

So what exactly does the [RPM]-[BLACK]-[RED] do in comparison to the normal [RPM]-[RED]-[BLACK]? Does it run the fan at 5v?

Reason I'm asking is because a fan in my Cisco Catalyst 2950 is going downhill and it uses the odd configuration that the liberty uses. I was going to get a faster SilenX fan (40mm only) but I realized that if it ends up being 5v'ed that the fan might not even start.

Any opinions?

Thanks!

Por

I've just done a fan swap in my liberty 500W.

Fan I've used was Chieftec AF1225-S (actually it is yate loon D12SL-12).
max rpm: 1350

First I had to swap red and black wires on fan's 3pin connector becouse I've read previusly in this post that liberty's 3pin connector is not like usual which was true.

Then I thought that my fan won't start spining when I turn on computer but it did!

Now PSU is not audible, fan is rottating and PSU is cold.

Only HDD is audible in my computer now.

Im really pleased with this fan swap I did!

it's been a few months since i swapped the fan in my liberty and i'm still very happy...

it's a fairly cheap PSU to begin with, and a $2 yate-loon and a few minutes of labour, puts it in the same league as the SPCR heavyweights (seasonic & corsair). for my money, i think it's the best value out there for a quiet, modular PSU.

The Liberty isn't cheap in the UK (like a lot of things I suppose) , so I'd be reluctant to do a fan mod if I bought it new.

Here in croatia liberty isnt cheap too, actually 400W model cost like seasonic 430W.

But, I must say that now when fan is swaped this PSU is more quiet then seasonic SII-12, actually is virtualy silent. I can hear fan only when I put my ear close to it.
I would say that rpms are between 400-500 (idle)