Things to remember before you go to repair your SMPS

This was the story of me with my SMPS problem. Sumit an co-author & a friend of mine has written this article in our blog TopKolkata.Com. Read it,
                                 Our blog founder Nabajit Saha was having a problem with his SMPS (or CPS as you say) since 7th February 2012. The problem was that whenever he was turning on his PC, after the boot & appearance of the windows log on screen a strange sound (like DRRRRRRRRRR or FHRRRRRRRRRRR) was coming out from the SMPS. He then shut down the PC and started again. This time the same happened again. After repeated 3rd time a strange thing happened. The PC powered on, all was ok till log on screen then as usual the sound started coming out but this time the sound automatically stopped after 2 minutes :-O. He was totally clueless what is happening & only guessed that it was the Fan of the SMPS which is making problem. After that he opened the SMPS and just cleaned the fan from outside (he didn't open the SMPS 7 break the warranty seal). Nothing changed! Then he decided to open the SMPS and see what happened inside.
He opened the SMPS, saw everything was fine inside except one thing that struck his mind which later became the real reason. He guessed that it was the grease or lubricating oil which dried inside the bearings of the fan. But he didn't applied any type of oil or grease by himself. He is using a Zebronics 450W SATA (20+4 pin) SMPS and hence called the service center to inform the problem. Someone from the service center told him to come down to their office along with the SMPS & the bill. He took me with him & we went there. Now from here read with a bit attention. We reached the office & described his problem to a service person sitting in front of a computer. He told us to give his (Nabajit's) SMPS, registered the same for entry purpose, put on a sticker on the SMPS & told us to sit on a chair. We sat there & saw that a lot of SMPS's are there, may be all came for repair we don't know why they are here for. Suddenly within 5 minutes another man asked him to come along with him & showed him to confirm that a SMPS(other than his one's) is working fine. He told us to take that SMPS with him & leave the crashed one we brought with us. After a bit inspection we found that the SMPS he was giving to us was a repaired one & had a lots of shock proof tapes (black tapes, yellow tapes) are stuck with the SMPS board. We quickly asked that what is this? Why he is giving this old repaired one instead of the new one we brought with us. He softly told us that this will not make a problem & to take this with us back home. We denied to do so & he told us to wait for 30minutes for repairing our SMPS. We were waiting & within 5 minutes someone (a serviceman) asked us "why is this warranty seal broken? Who broke it?" Nabajit said that "I broke to clean the fan only by blowing a mouthful of wind & did nothing else." Then the serviceman told us that we have to pay Rs.150 as service charge as we broke the warranty seal. He was right at his point. We pleaded him that "please just see it once, we did nothing except blowing a mouthful wind only after the fan was making problem. We did not broke the seal before the problem arise. Please believe us". But the serviceman said it is against their rule & we have to pay it. We then cam back home & applied our home remedy. We just applied some lubricating oil (very little) & guess what the sound gone . Everything is now working absolutely fine as before.
# Now the main reason of saying these all. We want to aware everyone of Kolkata (& globally also) thing to do & not to do when you face a problem like him.

To Do:

1. Carefully take out the SMPS from the cabinet by unplugging all the ports from HDD, MotherBoard, DVD drive etc. & release all the screw from cabinet (store them carefully cause if you loss one there is no replacement).
2. If you are not that much able to do these then please please please take assistant of a experienced person. Cause if you cause any harm to the hardware or the wires you will not be favored with a replacement or free service.
3. Carefully repack your SMPS in a packet & keep it aside to take it with you to the service center.
4. Remember to take the purchase bill with you.
5. Take special care of the WARRANTY SEAL. It is the only one that can fetch you a free service (within the tenure of service period)

Not to DO:

1. NEVER OPEN the SMPS box of your own if you are in the warranty period. If you open & break the warranty seal your warranty contract goes invalid the moment you break it. It is their contract & can not be avoided or broken.
2. Never forget to take the bill with you in the service center.
3. DON'T BE CARELESS when the service center is doing something with your SMPS. Take full attention of what they are doing with it.
4. We thought that we should discuss this experience with public. Hope it benefits you.