Life of a PS Audio PowerPlant??

10-01-12: Stevecham
Yes it does and, ....

wow! how come your P300 was/is so different from the one I have? My P300 does not have a fan. The one that my friend has also does not have a fan. (Just as an aside: In fact, if it did, I would never have bought it!!)
I've seen several 360-degree pix of P300 units & I've never seen a fan on any of them. The P300 I'm talking about are the 1999, 2000, 2001 i.e. older units. Are you talking about the same vintage P300 units?

I had a P300 and it had a fan. If the fan switched to high it became way too loud. According to PS Audio the unit could operate with the fan disconnected if you ran it under a light load. Eventually I sold the P300, but not because of any performance or reliability issues.

Apparently there is more than one version of the P300? I bought mine in 1995, it has no fan. In fact there is no mention of a fan in the P300 manual on the PS Audio website, but it does talk about shutdown from overheating if there is inadequate ventilation.

The original P300 did not have a fan. Due to heat issues, later production P300 had a fan to aid with cooling. PS Audio sold a P300 fan upgrade kit to users with older units. Google PS Audio P300 fan upgrade.

I had an older P300 that had no issues other than the blue logo light burning out. I did overload it a couple of times (accidentally) by plugging a TV into it (plasma was way too big a load for it) but I was able to reset the unit and it was not damaged. I eventually sold it to get one of the first Power Plant Premiers. That thing was broken out of the box--it clicked and would not operate--so PS Audio sent me a brand new replacement, which developed the same problem after about 2 months. Perhaps these were the made in China models, it was a few years ago. I have not tried a Power Plant again, but just this week bought a Perfect Wave DACII, Transport and Bridge so I hope the quality control is back at PS Audio.