Those of us who had hands on experiance with the Accutron found out pretty quickly that they had a serious FLAW. When subjected to loud sounds they either paused or speed up. I learned this in an old Hi-Fi shop while demoing smplifiers and speakers. If you pointed out the speaker currently in use by putting your hand up to it, the Accutron would stop! When out of the loud sound environment it would start again.
The DC fans that inhabit most PC equiptment are notoriously unreliable. The most common mode of failure is lubrication failure. The added expense of lubing these puppies is miniscule; why it isn't done is a mystery to me and lots of others. TIP: Take the risk to your warrantees and open your equiptment take the fans out and LUBE THEM. Usually there is a plastic label over the bearing; Feel over the label for a hole or depression, then either puncture it or carefully peel it back, then put a drop or two of a good oil in it. Then you can reseal it with tape. Do not use WD40, it has poor lubricity.
Fan failure has been the prelude to computer failure for many decades. IBM used to put 'thermal' switches downwind of ventelated components; if the switches got hot the ENTIRE computer complex would shutdown. Imagine being in a '70's IBM Mainframe computer room (an acre or two) with all it's seperate machines and airconditioning equiptment when the entire complex "thermals down"! Sudden silence; the only thing to hear is the spinning down of motorgenerator units.
There is an alternative for those of you who are comfortable working in the PRIMARY side of your power supplies. Get a Radio Shack or similar 117VAC fan and BOLT it to the back of each powersupply in 'airflow-series' with the DC fan air outlet. If you are qualified you can wire it directly into the PRIMARY side of the PS; or you can simply put a plug on the 'booster fan' and plug it into a power strip.
Those of us who had hands on experiance with the Accutron found out pretty quickly that they had a serious FLAW. When subjected to loud sounds they either paused or speed up. I learned this in an old Hi-Fi shop while demoing smplifiers and speakers. If you pointed out the speaker currently in use by putting your hand up to it, the Accutron would stop! When out of the loud sound environment it would start again.
The DC fans that inhabit most PC equiptment are notoriously unreliable. The most common mode of failure is lubrication failure. The added expense of lubing these puppies is miniscule; why it isn't done is a mystery to me and lots of others. TIP: Take the risk to your warrantees and open your equiptment take the fans out and LUBE THEM. Usually there is a plastic label over the bearing; Feel over the label for a hole or depression, then either puncture it or carefully peel it back, then put a drop or two of a good oil in it. Then you can reseal it with tape. Do not use WD40, it has poor lubricity. Fan failure has been the prelude to computer failure for many decades. IBM used to put 'thermal' switches downwind of ventelated components; if the switches got hot the ENTIRE computer complex would shutdown. Imagine being in a '70's IBM Mainframe computer room (an acre or two) with all it's seperate machines and airconditioning equiptment when the entire complex "thermals down"! Sudden silence; the only thing to hear is the spinning down of motorgenerator units. There is an alternative for those of you who are comfortable working in the PRIMARY side of your power supplies. Get a Radio Shack or similar 117VAC fan and BOLT it to the back of each powersupply in 'airflow-series' with the DC fan air outlet. If you are qualified you can wire it directly into the PRIMARY side of the PS; or you can simply put a plug on the 'booster fan' and plug it into a power strip.