Remove (or throttle) fan on eMac I'm replacing the HDD  with a SSD on an eMac (1 GHz). I get a headache from the  loud fan noise. A friend who does hardware repairs said the fan is there mainly because of the HDD, so I should then be able to disconnect the fan. Can someone with knowledge and experience with this confirm?

If the machine will fail without the fan, we plan to throttle the fan, ie. adjust its supplied power based on the measured temperature in the cabinet. Please share any knowledge/experience with this.
If you fan is making enough noise to give you a headache it's because the bearing has worn out.  

Removing the fan is not a good idea.  Fans in computers either pull in cool air or expel warm air.  The fact that this fan was close to the drive doesn't negate the fact that it wasn't displacing the "other" warm ambient air around the drive.

You have three options:


Replace the fan.  A quick search on eBay shows there are still fans available for the eMac.
Replace the motor.  The good news is that the fan motor and blades aren't so custom as you would think.  The fan PN# is 4710KL-04W-B56 and can also be found on eBay quite easily.  You can disassemble the fan, extract the motor/blades and replace it.
Replace the bearing.  These older fan assemblies could actually be taken apart (if you're careful).  Simply replace the bearing assembly (you'll need ID and OD measurements) and purchase a bearing online.