Questions about putting a power supply outside the pc's case

[Fyre2387]

OK, so I've got a slimline Acer desktop and there simply isn't room to stick a decent power supply in this thing. Some googling, however, has told me that its apparently ok to run a psu outside the pc's case. I have a few questions, though:

1) Is this, indeed, safe?

2) I've read that grounding is not a concern, as that is provided by the outlet via the third prong. Is this true? If not, what would I have to do to ground the psu?

3) Anything else I need to know? Potential hazards?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mocchan]

It's perfectly safe, and you're correct about the grounding pin (correct me if I'm wrong) so you don't have any worries about shorting.

There are a few potential hazards, however -

1) If your PSU fan is of modern build, it will most likely have a 135MM fan on the bottom/top. If you orient it so the fan is on top, you have the chance of dropping something into the PSU while it's on.

2) This isn't really a concern, but you could get some major dust build up inside your PSU due to it being outside instead of sucking in air through a filtered intake (Not on all cases, but most bottom mounted PSU cases will have a filter)

3) You could knock your PSU off the table/off the top of your case which may cause you some troubles.

Besides that, I don't really see a problem with running a PSU outside your case :lol: My brother ran one like that for around two months before getting his new case, didn't have an issue

 

[clutchc]

That's perfectly acceptable as long as you heed mocchan's advice. Many rigs have no case at all. As long as you are plugged into a properly grounded outlet, you won't have any grounding issues to worry about. If your PSU has a fan on the top/bottom, you may want to set the PSU on its side so dust doesn't get sucked into it as much.