hot psu = dying?

[belinik]

Am in the process of closing down my aunts office(she is closing and got a good number of old computers and cables etc...)

She offered me to pick up anything.

Picked up a dell server and also a desktop.

When disassemble the pc I noticed the PSU is hot! the case is very cheap and I felt the heat seem to pass thru the thin casing.

I then open the case and noticed the computer is very clean, absolutly no dust(very suprise since she have that computer ON for the past 2 1/2 year. I think her uptime was 450 days.)

When I touch the psu physically it is quite warm, it is not to the point it will burn my finger. The case has close to none vent, there are 2 40mm (1 side 1 back case fan which I giggled when I saw it.)

Computer was 3 years old ish with the following parts.

Pentium D 3.0
1gb ddr ram
7300 LE nvidia
asus ??? mobo
antec true power 550watt(I am sure it's 500 - 550) and it's probably the old truepower

is that a sign of psu dying? I am planning to use it 24/7 in my room.. last thing I want is to have my room on fire

[martin_metal_88]

old true power were having a problem withthe fan controller if my memories good. The fan was not running (running slow) until the PSU was reaching a certain temp and then run 100%. If the computer have decent airflow then, yes the PSU can beon the last day. If it's really a 500-550 these part would not pull more then like...220W so he is not supose to get warn. I think you should plug it with 1 fan let it run add another fan and blablabla to see if he get's hot or if it was only due to bad condition.

[MarkOne]

when a dead psu fan is solder on the board of the psu, and I'm to leasy to unsolder it , I just run a regular fan wire outside the psu ( true the hole of the other wire ) and plug it on a molex . do not open the PSU if you have no back groung in electronic. the condenser discharge can kill you, even unplug . Just change that PSU , even if you only change the fan, the condensers are aging too.