Rant: My $17 USB fan fried my router's motherboard

Picked up this cheap clip-on fan on Amazon for my router setup because it kept overheating in the summer. Worked fine for about 3 weeks, then one morning the whole thing smelled like burnt plastic. Turns out the fan had a short and sent some weird voltage back through the USB port. Cost me $80 for a replacement router and now I just point a regular box fan at it instead. Anyone else ever had a cheap accessory destroy a gadget like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

emery8791mo agoMost Upvoted

Cheap USB stuff is a total gamble with power delivery. Those no-name brands cut every corner possible and skip basic safety stuff like fuses or voltage regulation. I've seen customers at my bar plug in crappy phone chargers that buzz and get hot to the touch. Your router got cooked because that fan's circuit shorted out and sent 12 volts or something nasty right back into the port. Box fan is the smart move, or at least get a powered USB hub with surge protection between your router and any cheap accessory. Lesson learned the hard way, eighty bucks is a steep price for that education.

perry.karen1mo ago

I read somewhere that a lot of these cheap USB fans actually lack any kind of overcurrent protection, so when they fail, they can send way more voltage than a router can handle straight down the line. One review I saw said a $5 fan fried their entire entertainment system because there was no fuse to stop the surge. Box fan is definitely the safer bet for cooling gear that matters.