Replacing the MPC4000's case fan with a "silent" one...?

feline1 wrote:well you probably can't hear *my* fan in GERMANY, can you??

Maybe a little bit, but your gain/level debate (slug-out) with Blue Haze was alot louder!

Hmmm - well, my nice new silent fan arrived -
BUT - so far I haven't been able to remove the bloody old one yet!
Cos the screws on mine have been sealed with some green sealant stuff - tsk...
Gotten one off so far, but I'm off to the shops to buy a better screw driver to try and get the rest!

Woah!
Had to saw off the last screw with a little hacksaw, as it's head got wrecked before I could get it free from the sealant!

Then another slight snag, as the Silenx fan had a 3-pin motherboard connector, and the Akai has a 2 pin socket on the board... the Silenx also had a big 2 pin molex PSU connector..... ended up stripping the wires on the original fan's lead and munging them into the big molex connector...
whilst faffing around with this MANAGED TO BRUSH MY WRIST AGAINST THE MPC4000's PSU BOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! VERY VERY VERY STUPID!!!!!!!!! ELECTRIC SHOCK DOWN MY ARM INTO MY CHEST!!!!!!! LUCKY TO STILL BE ALIVE!!!!!!! STUPID STUPID FELINE1


But anyways - I am still alive - the new fan works - it *IS* virtually silent! Yay!
Wish my original 2002 fan had been like that.

Good grief!

I finally got one of these Silenx fans. Didn't see any others that quite match the specs, so grabbed one from Newegg. Feline wasn't joking about the pain in the ass screws and connector. I ended up drilling the heads off 2 of the screws and "munging" the fans wires to the molex connector too. Kind of ghetto, reminded me of installing a ZIP drive on the XL. It's a real pain to work in that tiny corner with all the boards around it. The bottom rubber screws were also tough to get on since you couldn't reach them. Unlike Feline, I kept mine unplugged, that power suply is very close to the fan! I learned my lesson on the XL a while back, that ish hurts.

Anyway, it was totally worth the trouble as it is now silent when the disk is spun down. Now I just need a silent PC. For those of you who installed this fan earlier, is your still behaving?

While I was in there, I went to put in a digital CD-ROM SPDIF cable (cdrom to digital card). As it turns out, the digital card has some other white 2-prong connector instead of using the same black cd-rom connector on both ends (that EVERYTHING else uses). Anyone have any idea where to find those? All the ones I've found have that same black connector on both sides.

Danm dudes......I just turn up the volume Can't hear the fan at all....

haha, what are you guys doing?! I just gently turned the four screws into place, in their rubber bushings, and I connected red to red, black to black and tied the unused control wire off with a wire nut. haha, you guys sound like Wallace and Gromit making a spaceship.

-illiac

A few months ago, I was thinking about disabling the fan at the back. Would that be a safe thing to do?

fader-pro wrote:Danm dudes......I just turn up the volume Can't hear the fan at all....

Well, my microphone doesnt agree with you.

MPC 4 ME wrote:A few months ago, I was thinking about disabling the fan at the back. Would that be a safe thing to do?

no! not unless you leave the power off also.

-illiac

MPC 4 ME wrote:A few months ago, I was thinking about disabling the fan at the back. Would that be a safe thing to do?

Don't be so silly, man -
if you do that, the MPC4000 will overheat and break.

MPC 4 ME wrote:

fader-pro wrote:Danm dudes......I just turn up the volume Can't hear the fan at all....

Well, my microphone doesnt agree with you.

gotcha - my mics are in another room....

"Don't be so silly, man -
if you do that, the MPC4000 will overheat and break

I don't know if its silly... I disabled my fan several years ago and I have had no problems with overheating

Has anyone ever heard of an MPC4k overheating because of a failed/disconnected fan? Just what is supposed to get so hot in there? Its not like the fans is even anywhere near the processor. The case is well ventilated and with a ton of free space... the HD doesn't need cooling. i suspect that unless you live in a very warm climate the fan is not necessary

of course I am not recommending anyone else try it

O

It depends on a lot of stuff:
-ambient temperature
-options installed
-usage

I'm not sure why you say that the HD doesn't need cooling. Certainly HDs in general do need cooling, and overheating is the most certain way to ruin one.

No doubt they designed some margin into the unit, and so it can doubtless cool itself without a fan under the right conditions.

Still, it's not a good idea to disable the fan altogether IMO.

-illiac

Look it's like this:

electronic (particularly complex digital) components generally keep working...until they fail.

Let them continually overheat, and they will reach that failure point quicker.


So your notion that "there are no problems" is just naive.
You could seriously reducing the lifetime of stuff, and you won't have a clue until the day it goes kaputt.

you might be right, but I am surprised you assume Akai knew what they were doing when they put a fan in it - its not like you trust them about anything else!

anyway, i suspect its overkill, theres nothing magic about the 4k, its just a computer. I've cracked it open often enough to know that it is significantly cooler than most PCs in there, the drive runs cooler for sure with all that space around it

the reason I turned it off in the first place was that i went thru all the crap you just went thru and swapped it around for a "quiet" fan which at the time (3-4 years ago) was just as noisy as the Akai one

believe it or not I also electrocuted myself in the process, it threw me across the room and scared the bollocks off me.. its a very strange feeling I won't repeat in a hurry

maybe to be safe I'll put a modern fan in sometime, and a quiet 2.5" HD as well. I want my 4k to live forever

O