I think the fan on my laptop is about to die...

Forums: Computers, Pc Help, Laptop Fan, Laptop Repair
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Starting tonight, my laptop fan has started to arbitrarily making a loud(ish) whine/noise and sending odd noticeable vibrations throughout the computer. The symptoms don't last long. Right now, my computer and the fan is fine. No other symptoms other then the random fan noise/vibrations have been shown.

1. IS this a critical item that can cause an IMMEDIATE domino effect as soon as it breaks? Could bits fly off a broken laptop fan when it dies (I'm worried about internal circuits being possibly damaged NOT people outside the computer)? Should I stop using my laptop until the fan is looked at/replaced?

2. OF all the laptop repair issues, is it going to be costly to replace a new fan?

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Type: Question • Score: 4 • Views: 1,266 • Replies: 6

[+3] - farmerman - 01/20/2013if the fan craps out, dont think youve got all the time in the world. Batteries can heat up (especially Dells) and the HD can get dead and difficult to retrieve. I had such an incident with an old...

@tsarstepan,

Bearings might be going and if that is the case it going will not directly harm anything else.

The added heating would however be bad for the laptop but there are free monitoring programs that will monitor the temperature of both your CPU and hard drive as for example my CPU is running at 116 F and hard drive is at 104
F.

I would suggest googling for such a free program and installing it on the laptop to keep an eyes on the temperatures.

Oh there is also cooling platforms that run on a laptop usb power that you can picked up cheaply and placed under the laptop.

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@tsarstepan,

The typical repair issue for a fan is a noise that sounds like whine which is a bearing on it's way out. Replacement of a fan is not very expensive.

I would get it fixed pretty soon with an intermittant issues such as that - but if the bearing seizes up, no parts will fly out as it is contained. Laptops are not happy at all with a dead fan.

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@tsarstepan,

if the fan craps out, dont think youve got all the time in the world. Batteries can heat up (especially Dells) and the HD can get dead and difficult to retrieve. I had such an incident with an old lappy top. Now I use a homemade grille lattice upon which the laptop sits.
Fans are cheap and Id have it done by someone whose business it is. Losing data is the biggest downer for me.

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@BillRM,

Thanks Bill. I took your advice and downloaded Core Temp (temp monitor) on the basis of a CNET editorial review. I'll definitely get the fan fixed sometime this week.

Thanks Ragman. Both Bill's and your words of encouragement has taken the worrying about any catastrophic laptop death down a few dozen notches.

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@tsarstepan,

Have you got your laptop on top of a cooler? If not, I'd recommend at least getting it raised in a way that allows air to circulate underneath while you sort things out.

I just picked up some extra cooling fans at the Cdn sister company to t.j.maxx in the after-xmas sales. I like to keep them on hand since over-heating can murder laptops - in fact, it's what a salesman to do to get an upgraded computer - wrap it in a blanket to force it to overheat and die, a month or 6 weeks before the warranty expires.

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@tsarstepan,

tsarstepan wrote:

2. OF all the laptop repair issues, is it going to be costly to replace a new fan?

cheap to deal with - but important (I learned that from dag)

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I think the fan on my laptop is about to die...

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