Can magnets damage the psu?

[ecca]

Hi guys,

Iv'e recently mounted an 80mm fan in my old pc by strapping a hard drive magnet (from an old 1.5gb I found lying around) to the outside and sticking it on the bottom of the psu. It's there to blow on the cpu HS to replace that old noisy 60mm fan. I know that those magnets are pretty strong and I started to wonder if it would damage the psu (or anything else for that matter) seeing its in such a close proximity to it.

Thanks.

 

[joefriday]

theoretically, it may have some slight affect on the electrons moving through the circuits, but in practice, I doubt the electromagnetic forces would be so great as to cause any noticeable degradation in performance.

 

[mesarectifier]

I'd never stick a magnet in my system.

 

[iroc]

No it will not damage your psu but can damage your HD!!

 

[tcdude]

ahh that reminds me on the "What can kill a HDD?" thread....


the good old times where you could destroy a floppy disk with just a kitchen magnet...

 

[ecca]

No it will not damage your psu but can damage your HD!!

Yea I am aware of that and its no where near the HD. Thanks for your help guys.

 

[baddog1]

The magnet from a microwave magnetron just might be able to damage a hard drive, but not a regular magnet. The steel casing blocks the majority of outside magnetic fields (as it's designed to do), so unless it's a really strong magnet, forget about it. Although, a Raptor X just may be more susceptible to damage than others, due to the plastic window. As for the psu, uh, no. Or anything else in there.

 

[pengwin]

i just keep all my magnets away from my PC, i dont take chances.

 

[itneal2277]

Power supplies have transformers in them which operate by wrapping electrical wire around a conductor, thus creating magnetic flux when electricity is applied. They're purpose is to raise and lower voltage so they are commonly used in power supplies to lower voltage to more suitable levels for a PC before converting AC to DC power. More info can be found here. I suppose if the magnet is powerful enough the field could be interfering with the transformers.

 

[JesterX]

i just keep all my magnets away from my PC, i dont take chances.

I ran a decent sized magnet over my HD once by accident. I was taking it out of the system to put in a safe place; it was my backup HD. Luckily, no data got wiped.

 

[joefriday]

How many Tesla was it? :lol:

 

[China Magnets Source Material]

It's better to keep strong magnet away from PC