As I have mine in my living room next to where my computer is, I'm generally not even aware of it running. But one of the fans has started a bit of a wobble which caught my ear, though it seems to be gone now. This reminded me of the other day when the fans ramped up and were noticeably loud. I had checked the temps then and they were up around 68C. I went in and checked again after hearing this wobble tonight and I'm hovering around 48C. I don't remember what my average temps were previously. Maybe I've posted them in this thread before, I don't recall.
This all seems to have started after we had a power outage over Christmas while I was away. (Think the power was out for about 5 hours while the UPS probably only lasted about 3 or 4 hours at most.) I had thought I had it configured to auto power on when power was restored, but apparently not. I still need to get in there and set that one of these days. But in any case, when I turned it on after we got home, the fans screeched something terrible for a couple minutes while booting but then calmed down into a slightly louder volume than before, but low enough that you generally don't notice it unless you're listening for it.
So I don't know if the extended shutdown after constant running for so long did something to the fans, or if they're just old, or probably a combination of both. But now I'm thinking I should start looking for some replacement fans. Since I currently have this running and it's also in a slightly annoying spot to access it without having to shut it down and pull it all out, I'd like to ask a few questions that I don't recall having seen posted, though after all these years, it's hard to remember everything. (I tried searching but apparently don't remember how to correctly fine-tune the search results on this site and wasn't able to find anything helpful.)
Since this is on a 1U platform, I'm assuming pretty much any 40mm fan will fit, but does anyone know the depth of the stock fans or the max depth? I'm thinking if I'm going to buy a replacement fan, I'll just replace all 3 and maybe try and go for some quiet Noctua fans or something. Anyone have any suggestions on fans? Does anyone know the size of the fan in the power supply? As of right now, I'm not sure which fan it is that is dying and it could very well be the PS fan that's the culprit. I know these can be slightly more tricky to replace depending on how it's mounted, but I'm fairly sure I can manage without electrocuting myself inside. Any suggestions on a replacement fan for the PS? While my PS is apparently slightly different in that it had 2 SATA power cables instead of 1, I imagine the fan is still the same.
Anyway, thank you in advance for any help and suggestions. It will save me some time from having to find some time when everyone else isn't trying to use the internet to go in and diagnose which fans are dying and then getting the replacements and then bringing it down again to do the actual replacement.