HELP Laptop Cooling died....

[drewmister]

As you may or may not have read I recently recieved a free hp pavillion ze5607wm. If you want to know a little more about this system please look at my original thread.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=355634

Anyway the problem starts like this... I am watching movies on my laptop and everything is running great... Then all of the sudden I hear this hideous sound coming from a fan that has gone out of whack (You know when the bearing is off or breaks... it still spins and pushes air but sounds horrendous). So I turn it over and I notice it is coming from one of the two blower fans. Of course naturally this is a problem for me because although the fan is working it sounds like a train... Sometimes after it is running long enough it quiets down. Anyway the main problem after this is when I came to the realization that this was the only one of all 3 of the fans on my laptop that were spinning...

Do the fans shut off when not needed? I have been checking the other periodically and they don't even turn on after prime95 testing and gaming... It hasn't crashed yet, but I am not really looking to ignore the problem and hope its insignificant.

Does anyone know where to order replacement fans for laptops? I am not sure what the specs on these fans are as I have never taken a laptop apart before.

I have also considered contacting hp customer service... but getting answers from them on this subject looks like a unrealistic task... I have the feeling that if I asked why my fans aren't spinning or where to get replacements they will tell me "Is your computer on? Are you sure they aren't spinning." Then they will refer me to some fan store online that has gone out of business or something to that extent...

I dont have a camera to explain very well but I'll take a webcam image to try to give the best description i can...

1. Terrible sounding blower is the only one of the two blowers even spinning
2. Tiny little fan in center back doesn't spin either

[drewmister]

This is the bottom of my laptop

[drewmister]

This is the whole laptop and its little stickers.

[drewmister]

This is how it makes me feel.

[Arkaine23]

I have a feeling that if its under warranty, you'd have to ship it or take it to the nearest service center. As for doing it yourself, you most likely need a small screwdriver. Fans are generally labeled and you should be able to find the manufacturer to find replacements. On mine, the cpu fan is unusally thin and operates on 5v instead of 12v (60mmx60mmx10mm).

[drewmister]

Its too old to be under warranty... I guess this is a do it yourself job...

[ozzlo]

on my laptop there are only two fans that i know of and the first one does not start spinning until 65+ degrees and the second one only turns on if my vid card temp is high. they may still be working fans, just the mobo never turns them on. you can pull out the fans and hook em up to a battery to see if they still work.

[four4875]

my lappys fans are both 5 V, one is a strange 50mm or so blower fan that has funky mounting (it sits in the heatpipe) and the other is a 40mm blower that i never notice come on. i usually run it on my bed or lap too, and it gets quite warm, leaves a big ole warm square on it... but anyways... it kicks on my CPU fan if its warm, i dunno how warm i have no cpu monitoring :-( but its after its been either laoded a while or running at like even half speed sittin on the bed. the chipset is heatsunk into the aluminum shielding in the lappy, so the whole bottom side gets nice and warm. but like i said, even after a couple hours of playin counterstrike (keeps it loaded fully) while it is sitting on my bed it doesnt turn on the second fan, and ive put 5V to this fan to make sure it does work. my suggestion would be that if you take it apart put power to it (it'll say what it is on the sticker) and make sure the fnas are working. if they dont or are troubled you could try to oil them if hard to spin or just replace them.

[Arkaine23]

Often, booting from a Knoppix CD, will disable ACPI/APM and run any fans at full speed.....

[drewmister]

A knoppix CD?

[Arkaine23]

www.knoppix.net

Knoppix is a version of Linux which can be run by booting from a CD. You don't need a hard drive at all and it won't mess with your windows install or files unless you want it to. Basically it boots like a windows install CD would, but then goes into a fully functional Linux desktop running from the CD-rom and files copied into a ramdisk. Its slower than a hard drive installed operating system since CD read speeds are slower than HDD read speeds, but its a nice commitment-free way to demo Linux. So many tools and free software are included that's it can be very handy for rescue and recovery.

Just download the latest english iso file, and burn an image of it (this is a special option in mos tCD burning softwares and ensures the CD is bootable). Set your bios to boot from CD before HDD as you would when installing an OS, and see what Knoppix can do.

It takes about a minute to detect all your hardware and boot into a graphical Linux environment. Knoppix includes ftp clients, image manipulation software, media players, cd burning apps, M$ office-like software, instant messaging programs, tons of stuff...


Very handy. Very useful. And fun to show off! :)

Anyway it generally avoids using ACPI/APM functions when booted on laptops, so fans tend to run at full speed.