Hey man dont get intimidated by people who dont know what they are talking about. clearly they havent attempted at replacing ps fans before so their warnings are ridiculously funny. Like a poster said, you can unplug the power supply and try turning on the computer (hold the button down for a while! or put a jumper on the power sw pins) to drain some juice, however this is not as effective as using a power supply tester which can be had for 20 bucks, you plug it in and it does the draining for you. (additionally, most new power supplies have electric shock protection systems to further protect you, just dont rely on it, you dont want to test if it works - on yourself)
In general it is physically impossible to burn down your house or yourself from fiddling with fan wires, however if you get them backwards you will have a fan that is blowing the wrong way, which is not very optimal for your airflow.
Overall, the voltage on the fan is extremely low and you can safely short them with your fingers even with the unit plugged in (however it is not recommended and is quite stupid to actually try).
I have been reading around and saw an article on screensavers where this guy put fan controllers into the power supply to slow them down manually, i think that and a good quet fan will do wonders for you. check out panaflo or vantec stealth. Also you should check out the thermaltake volcano case fan, although it is as loud as a tornado on full speed, with the included speed controller you can make it 17db at the lowest setting and at this speed the fan moves more air then any other quiet fan.
you will pay a premium for it though, but with its speed control you can find a perfect balance of airflow and noise which cannot be done with the stealth fans.
p.s. Here are some more precautions to take when opening a power supply: Wear professional grade insulated gloves, (home depot) and only touch what you need to touch (fan wires).
If you have to take apart the psu and disassemble the innards (for example to reach a fan thats otherwise hard to reach) then you should definitelly invest in a power supply tester or atleast very high grade gloves (a good pair of boots with thick rubber soles is a plus) and discharge the capacitors with a jumper on the power sw pins atleast overnight (im talking about the pins on the motherboard, with the ps plugged into the motherboard).
If you are particularly brave (or stupid) and want to work without gloves on a questionably discharged power supply then you can minimize possible damage by using one hand at all times and keep the other hand behind your back.
You dont want to take unnecessary risks and i take no responsibility for your stupidity. Some power supplies can shock you even a full week+ after removed from the power outlet, so keep that in mind! Although its wise to wait a good amount of time (depending on psus power output) to fully discharge it without a tester, a majority of the charge is removed almost instantly when you try to power it on while unplugged from the wall. Getting shocked by the residual potential is therefore less dangerous but not very pleasant. If you have a pacemaker, just go ahead and buy a new power supply, your risk of death is absolutely not worth it.
The most economical way to do this is to purchase a ps tester, its 20 bucks or less and is by far the safest and surest way to drain your power supply, it even has an indicator to tell you its status. Also electricians gloves are cheap and should be a part of your toolbox anyway.
Saphire 9700pro (400gpu/333mem)
Asus A7N8X ND + XP 2700(192fsb x 12 @ 1.775v)
Corsair PC 3500 512 @ 5-3-3-2T
Audigy 2, WD-SE 80GIG
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by stoochie on 04/06/03 11:27 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
(Once I hit it so hard the PC restarded,, oops..heh) This noise means that the Fan is dying and not the PSU?, right
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