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I have an a16 (first genration). Can I just cut the wire to the fan? Or is there a protection system, so it will not power up with the wire cut?
I will ofcoarse give it free air above, so it will not fry.

just do it
it has been reported to work without fan if enough airflow is provided.

you'll probably find (there definetely is) a 5V powerline somewhere on the board and connect the fan to this instead - some soldering required, but no big deal
There are fans that don't start rotating with 5V, though.

cheers, Tom

You could also use a resistor to lower the voltage to 7V, or use a different fan (Papst, Verax, YS-Tech or Noiseblocker).

I did this with my very noisy amp (ECLER PAM 2000), it's really quiet now...

yeah, that was my favourite method with old Macs to avoid tracable modifications (Apple has a lifetime exchange program for spare parts).
Just take care that it can take a load > 1 watt or whatever the fan specs suggest - greetings to the true ohmforce

cheers, Tom

I cut it. It works fine. I have it standing free now. Before I had it behind a "wall" of rockwool on top of my PC. It is actually cooler now, because it is easyer for it to get rid of excessive heat. It is so nice to get rid of the extra noise - and to just have it on and ready without having to do strange manouvers to get to even just turn it on.

i'm surprised that you can get away with this. when the fan failed on my a16 it would get hot enough to cook things on, and i experienced problems with the a/d's and d/a's overheating and degrading he audio.

i had to run an external fan to keep it cool, since replacing the internal fan appeared to be a big hassle. i couldn't get one to match the internal fan's specs.

I have it standing free on a table. It has been of for days non-stop now. It is actually less hot now, than before when it was stacked with other stuff and had the fan running.