Recently I have found that my Psu fan doesn't always spin. I first noticed it by the smell of
plastic heating up and felt the back of my pc wich was hot to the touch. I looked through the
vent slots and noticed the fan was not spinning. I used a coffee stirrer to prod at it and it started right up. The pc cooled down pretty quikly and the smell faded. I picked up a can of air the next day and blew the whole thing out. I even picked out any chunks trhat were inside the Psu with the before mentioned coffee stirrer. After cleaning it it was working fine for 3 days. I would start the pc and it would work perfectly. However today it was not spinning and was hot. I did it manualy like before and it cooled down. I know that it is clean, so what could it be? Its over 4 years old and I have used the heck out of it. I know its time to upgrade but I can't as of yet due to lack of money so any tips on getting this thing working would be great.

Sounds like the fan is on the way out. You may be able to buy yourself some time if you CAREFULLY open the PSU, remove the fan, clean it, oil the bearing, then reassemble.

Go to the following link & read response 3:

http://www.computing.net/hardware/wwwboard/forum/30270.html

Asus A7N8X-X
1800+ @8x210mhz
512mb PC3200
Ti4200/8X 128mb
WDC 60GB

bearing in mind how cheap a PSU is i would buy a new one. It is not worth messing about with. fan is probably worn out. PSU can contain dangerous voltage - be careful.

A cheap PSU is cheap...a good quality PSU is not

Asus A7N8X-X
1800+ @8x210mhz
512mb PC3200
Ti4200/8X 128mb
WDC 60GB

do as that link says as i do it all the time as i was the one who wrote it. i have even done it on my hd fan & fair # of other fans(ps, cpu, video & whatever). this will keep you going til funds become available. suggest you tape small piece of kleenex to top back end of case to use as a flag as fan air will cause it to flap

david

If you are handy at all you could replace the fan. They are pretty cheap.

i know cheap psu is 'cheap' and good psu is not but it is a gateway computer so new cheap psu will probably not be any 'cheaper'

Thanks for all the help. I will try what jam and ddp59 suggest first. If that doesn't work I will go with a cheap psu since I dont feel like putting much moeny in a 4 year old factory system. Hopefuly I will be able to build my own
sometime soon. At any rate I will let you know if it works. Thanks again!

I took the fan off and oiled the bearing and put it back on. It works great now. Thanks for the help!