So You Want to Clean Your Laptop Fan...

[Saver]

Little story:
Recently, my laptop has been making some strange buzzing noise that would go on and off every 5 seconds or so.
After checking every part of the outer laptop, I noticed that the source was coming from the fan.
My only thought? Clean the Fan!
However, cleaning the fan from the outside didn't appear to work.
What was I left to do? Find my way through the laptop to be able to clean the fan.
This has been my first time opening up a laptop (God, Desktops are 100% easier to handle <_<).


http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/IceSaver/DSCF1975.jpg


http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/IceSaver/20ShotsofaLaptopFanProcedure2.png

The best part was putting it back together. I had to put it back and take it apart 3 times because I screwed off too many screws from the wrong places ._.

Moral of the story: If you have an overheating problem or fan related troubles, prepare to take a long time solving a puzzle inside your laptop.
If you can't solve it or if you incorrectly solve it, you may result with a non-working laptop.
Take your time and keep track of everything (mainly screws).
Approach with caution, or approach someone with experience.

~Saver

[GIR]

That just seems like poor design to me. Laptops are known for having overheating troubles, so you would think they'd make the fan more easily accessible.

[JoeTang]

The reason that they have overheating problems is that the fan is in a poorly accessible area with low ventilation. To improve it, they would have to increase the size of the laptop, which is counter-productive for the design.
Never lose your screws. At the very least, always make sure to keep track of two for four corners so that you can put two diagonals and the piece won't fall out.

[Yoorah]

Removing the heat sink from the CPU was a bad idea, because you've ruined the thermal grease layer between the CPU chip and the heat sink. There are now air bubbles in between the CPU and the heat sink, and air is a good thermal insulator, so the end result is that you've lowered your system's cooling potential.

When you replace a CPU heat sink, you're supposed to throughly clean both surfaces from old thermal grease, and then apply a fresh layer.

[Katie]

Seeing how I have an issue with my laptop overheating as well, those pictures right that just scared the hell out of me.

Geek Squad at Best Buy... HERE I COME!

[Cardboardsnail]

Or get a cooling pad.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2030260319+1276817102&name=Cooler


Removing the heat sink from the CPU was a bad idea, because you've ruined the thermal grease layer between the CPU chip and the heat sink. There are now air bubbles in between the CPU and the heat sink, and air is a good thermal insulator, so the end result is that you've lowered your system's cooling potential.

When you replace a CPU heat sink, you're supposed to throughly clean both surfaces from old thermal grease, and then apply a fresh layer.

Yes, it's crucial that you reapply thermal paste, or you might find yourself with a fried CPU (Or at least one that gets REALLY hot)

[Saver]

Strangely enough, my computer has been cooler lately <.<

Also, when I removed that piece from the hard drive (#19), the padding was just laying on top of the CPU, without any paste or whatnot <_<, so I figured that taking it out and putting it back was okay (seems okay so far).
Not to mentioned, I had to in order to take off the fan.

But seriously, the work JUST to get to the fan of a laptop is ridiculous...

[xLeviathan]

I think they should make fans somewhat like the 'older' disc drives, in the sense that they pop-out when you press a button, perhaps on the bottom of the casing.

Mine overheats and shuts off, but only when I'm too lazy to make it off my pillow where there's absolutely no ventilation.

[Darklai]

Mine overheats sometimes and smells like burned plastic even (Mmmm~ What a nasty smell.) but uh, I can't really do much about it. The reason it does is due to technically being overclocked. This thing is far too old to handle all these flashy new programs and it just runs itself to the point of becoming a bloody oven. When that happens though, I simply shut everything down and unplugg it from the adapter. 5 minutes later it's fine. :D Hooray for old weird computers!

[Katie]

So... I turned my laptop over after it just shutdown from over heating... and blew in the fan. Seems to not be over heating so much. I'm still calling Geek Squad to fix my crap laptop.:f4:

[finite]

that seemed like an adventure. i'm not a tech-savvy person so, gosh, would you imagine what would happen if i attempted that? eh.
i also need to clean out my computer's fan eventually; i'm not looking forward to it :x

[Delicae]

Or you could use compressed air like I do :f6:

I'm too chicken to take my laptop apart D;

[Saver]

Or you could use compressed air like I do :f6:

I'm too chicken to take my laptop apart D;

I used compressed air to clean the fan, as well as the rest of my laptop (the inside).
The compressed air couldn't get rid of the huge clumps of dust on the inside from the outside (laptop is almost 3 years old)