Safe to plug Fan in while running ?

[Cyanide72]

Quick question : is it safe to plug my fan to the psu/motherboard while the pc is running ?

[Zyzzyx]

I never plug anything in while running. Even tiny volts can wreak havoc on PC equipment.

[Skelly]

Will it work? Yeah. 100% safe? No

[Kyeguywar]

Don't think so

[Benser]

no it wont be safe...

[omghesbalance]

yes its 100% safe

[Neyze]

I'm so confused as to what you are trying to ask here.

[Deleted]

Haha. Seriously? It will be like plugging in an appliance into the wall while it's turned on. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it might let you know that's probably not a good idea. Question is: Do you feel lucky?

[Ogretron]

I would still say no to plugging in anything while a computer is already on. I think if you plug or unplug something the computer will reboot.

[Enola]

Perfectly fine, just in case of using directly the wires and no plugs be sure to don't touch nothing you shouldn't.

[Deleted]

Its pretty safe. Questions is why can't you turn off the computer to plug the fan in?

[DeltrusDisc]

Honestly, take the safe side and just turn the computer off for 2 minutes, would it kill you to do so?

[Cyanide72]

I was downloading something that didn't support pause/resume . yet didn't plug it in.
just waited till it was over.
Thanks for the answers by the way.

[Nightbliss]

Completely safe to plug a fan while the computer is running.

[Kait]

What Synthaxx said is probably true. I'm sure you can connect molex fans with no problems but I'm not sure about a CPU fan for example.

[Heltoray]

i remember a friend plugging in a IDE HDD during one of our LANs about 7 years ago. He didn't plug anything else into a running system after that.

[Linry]

i think its safe, but somethings telling me that turning it off is safer. ;D

[Djinni]

Ok, I know the OP is already done with this but:

Yes, you can plug any hardware into a system while its running.
No, it's not very safe. If you get particularly unlucky its very easy to get an electric shock.
For clarification, You DO NEED to have taken sufficient precuations to prevent ESD, Shorts or blocks in mechanical components. (IE no fingers or wires between the fan blades)

Back in the IDE days, IDE components were not hot-swappable. Any attempt to plug in or unplug an IDE device (HDD or Optical drive for example) would typically result in a system shutdown. Not harm done, simply reboot.

We used to run competitions in my IRC days, to see who could swap out as much hardware as possible without rebooting. The Topic joke went somthing like this:
Linux user swaps out his motherboard and CPU without rebooting. Windows user plugs in a USB and has to reboot to use the device.

[DaveL]

Ok, I know the OP is already done with this but:

Back in the IDE days, IDE components were not hot-swappable. Any attempt to plug in or unplug an IDE device (HDD or Optical drive for example) would typically result in a system shutdown. Not harm done, simply reboot.

I can say from my experience, nope. HDD could be swapped while system running (ofc not the where was OS installed). Just plug in, make refresh in drivers ta b and drive was working same went for CD mechanics.

[overclockedamd]

PSU yes
MB NOOOOOO.