There's only one fan in the PS3, and you certainly can't reach it without opening up the unit; it's not on the rear of the unit, it's in the center of the unit.
teh PS3 knows how to... (PS3/console dust cleaning thread)
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There's only one fan in the PS3, and you certainly can't reach it without opening up the unit; it's not on the rear of the unit, it's in the center of the unit.
Gradthrawn
Veteran
I always suspected there might be at least 2. One for the rearward facing vents, and one for the vents opposite the HDD access panel. I didn't know 1 fan was feeding them both. How deep is it?
EDIT
Nevermind, I see your updated post. Hmmm, well, securing the fan is out of the question then.
It's a single 160mm fan, it's deep, and it has a massive heatsink associated. Now mind you this is for original 90nm units; the newer 40GB and other variants differ on the heatsink, but I believe the fan is essentially the same - whatever the changes if any though, it's still a singular unit.
Gradthrawn
Veteran
Ahh, I see! Thanks for the pics. I think I remember, Kutaragi I believe, speaking about going with 1 large, slower, fan, to reduce noise, in a interview some time ago. That breakdown makes it pretty clear. For some reason, I thought I saw a fan at the rear behind the vents.
Freak'n Big Panda
Regular
I don't there will be a way to properly clean it out without opening it up and removing all the dust manually. You can only suck/blow so much dust out of the system with a vacuum cleaner/compressed air.
aaronspink
Veteran
And FYI, its not actually a fan, it falls into the category of blowers.
aaronspink
Veteran
While we're on a similar subject, does anyone know how to replace the PS3 fan (I have a 60 GB if that matters)? Fans invariably die so it would be good to know
Figure out where you can get a replacement *blower*, buy it, remove the old one, install the new one, just a matter of screws.
Isn't that akin to answering the question
"How does one fit a giraffe into a refridgerator?"
with
"Open door, insert giraffe, close door."
?
aaronspink
Veteran
Isn't that akin to answering the question
"How does one fit a giraffe into a refridgerator?"
with
"Open door, insert giraffe, close door."
?
when you can figure out where to get the replacement blower, feel free to give me a ring, I mean, if you can't remove some screws, you'll have a hard time replacing it.
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It won't be something you can acquire off the street; certain stores may stock it online after some time, and certainly third-party repair outfits will manage to get their hands on them for their own businesses, but ultimately I think it will be a low volume item whose origins will be from Sony (and their OEM partners) and them alone.
I don't think you should worry about the fan failure rates as a material concern though; the only fan I've ever had fail on me with anything has been a stock AMD heatsink (though I know GPU fans are prone). My PS2 for instance lasted since launch and that thing was dusty dusty dusty. CE items are built with just those sorts of tolerances in mind (from your console to your cable box). But even beyond the odds of it failing, the bottom line comes down to this: if it does fail, you're probably looking at imminent chipset failure, which is a problem that goes well beyond replacing a fan. And I don't know about you, but in the middle of a game, movie, folding, music, or overnight... I would certainly not count on myself to be able to perceive the noise reduction that would accompany a stopped fan. So consider it a heart attack for the console that you would be ill-prepared to survive anyway.
That's one fancy looking slot cooler the PS3 has in it. Apparently a decent amount of technology went into it.
Anyway I opened up the PS3 today to go ahead and clean the fan blades and my conclusion was... forget this route. The blades cannot be reached independent of the removal of all components, and as the cording is such that it's form-fitted into location and some of the connectors are a lot smaller (and my concern fragile) in nature than standard PC connectors, it's just not worth it to think about re-assembly down the line once the blades have been cleaned. But for what it's worth after 1 1/2 years in a very dusty environment, the dust accumulation on the 'north' side of the console (PSU and BD drive) was very very minimal.
Obviously the blades and the 'south' side are what are of most interest, but honestly I took a vacuum to the rear vent air channels after re-assembling the PS3 and not one visible clump of dust emerged. So, either it's caked on to those blades pretty well, or the square intake holes are doing their job of keeping dust out. Certainly I find myself wiping dust off of the grille of the system fairly often.
Obviously the blades and the 'south' side are what are of most interest, but honestly I took a vacuum to the rear vent air channels after re-assembling the PS3 and not one visible clump of dust emerged. So, either it's caked on to those blades pretty well, or the square intake holes are doing their job of keeping dust out. Certainly I find myself wiping dust off of the grille of the system fairly often.
Rainbow Man
Veteran
My launch-day 60GB PS3 does absolutely NOTHING when going through this routine - other than spitting out the disc in the optical drive if there's one in there.
If there isn't one it just beeps at me, annoyed at me mis-operating its high-tech touch controls.
Is this actually supposed to work or is ti some kidn of hoax?
Peace.
If there isn't one it just beeps at me, annoyed at me mis-operating its high-tech touch controls.
Is this actually supposed to work or is ti some kidn of hoax?
Peace.