Mac Pro overheating; can I replace the power unit fan?
After much strange behavior with my MacPro2,1 model I installed Hardware Monitor and discovered that the temperature readings for some of my Memory Modules and for the sensors on the Power Supply location 1 and Power Supply location 2 are very high. With no load the temperature is reading about 62° C on the "Power Supply Location 1" sensor and 85-90° on "Power Supply Location 2" sensor. I installed smcFanControl and found that I could cool the Memory Modules but even with all fans set on maximum speed the Power Supply temperatures droped only slightly to about 78- 80° C. All of the fans increased their RPM except for the "Power Supply Fan" which remains at 599 RPM no matter how high you set the Power Supply fan on smcFanControl.
All this leads me to suspect that the Power Supply Fan is either not running at all or is not able to accelerate in response to high temperatures in the power supply area.
My questions are these:
1. Can I visually confirm that the power unit fan is not working? That is, what do I need to do to actually visualize this fan in question and see if it is running? Is there another way to confirm that the fan is bad aside from just inferrring this from the high temperatures and findings in smcFanControl?
2. Is fan replacement a job that I could reasonably expect to perform myself or do I need to take it to an Apple repair shop? I have replaced hard drives and RAM in Powerbooks and a Mac Mini, installed PCI cards, etc.
3. Are there diagrams and/or instructions for doing this sort of thing?
Thanks.
John Baughman
Mac Pro