Is the 7 volt fan silencing mod dangerous to power supplies or other components?

I've seen this and even done it myself 4 or 5 years ago. But I read where one guy said it was dangerous to the powersupply and other components in the PC.

Here's a link

http://www.techpowerup.com/printarticle.php?id=137

There even used to be a great website that explained it with tons of other modifications called 7volts.com


I've got a 120mm fan that's too loud even with my Hardcano 10 fan controller. It's an LED 120mm. I knocked it down to five volt, but then the LED's don't come on at all. Not only that but my Q6600 got hot enough with the case fans at max of five volts to make the artic freezer 7 pro heatsink fan ramp up thus I defeated the purpose of making my case fans quieter. I thought I would try seven volts, but after reading that naysayer's comments a couple years ago I figure I'd better make sure I'm not hurting anything first - since I've got so much money wrapped up in components.

I was thinking about making the FAN controller receive 7 volts from the molex rather than 12 volts and then I could dial the whole thing down (one 120mm, and two 80mm fans attached) to probably even actually stopping the fans rather than just slowing them.

My power supply is an antec earthwatts 500. My rigg is in my signature.

Do I risk damaging say a hard-drive that is attached to the same "line" of molex connectors coming from the PSU if I do this? Do I risk damaging the PSU? Not risk in the sense that I might do it wrong, because I'm competent enough around these kinds of things - but risk in the sense that "power supplies aren't made for this and it's a bad idea" ------------- or "it's fine and you'll not hurt anything."

Does it make voltage rails unstable at all?

If there's a risk to it then I'll just buy a "silent" 120mm fan.

bump

I haven't had any problems with it, even for systems that ran for years. Was there any particular reason someone gave for it being harmful? It's a pretty common mod and there would be bad experiences posted if it did cause problems.

FWIW, I prefer to use appropriate watt resistors to more finely control the voltage to the fan. It's not much more work. Sometimes I want 10V, 9V or 6V, depending on the fan. I've had some fans that wouldn't even spin up with 7V.

That's the same reason I stopped using the 7volt mod for fans, because it was explained to be harmful to PSUs. One thing I remember for sure is that if you had something else that was creating a load on that rail from the PSU then you were safe to use the 7 volt trick.

I've used that exact mod for years now with no problem at all.

I've been using the 7v mod on my 3 fans (120mm and 2x 92mm) for years. Probably since 2001, if I can remember correctly. 2002 at the latest. So, for 6 or 7 years consistantly running the same fans on the same powersupply in the same exact computer. I've never had a problem.

I plugged it in and it seemingly works great - gets the fan volume down to where i want it.

I know this is a common mod and all but can someone with a better understading of the electronics explain why it's not harmful to the PSU. I mean we are basically touching the 12 and 5 volt lines together right? Load on 12, ground on 5 volt....How does that not throw off the stability of the voltage rails?