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Laptop fan continually blasting hot air

2K views 34 replies 7 participants last post by  James321 
#1 ·
When I first started using the laptop the fan would regularly switch on and off as you would expect. However now the fan is on almost continually and blasting out hot air. It's like having an electric fan heater on continually in the room.

Where's the heat coming from? Microchips operate at extremely low voltages, less than static discharge, so I can't imaging microchips getting that hot!

Also one of the keys on the keyboard came loose today and completely detached itself. Fortunately I was able to click it back into place again. Had this been caused by thermal expansion?

I attempted to open the back of the laptop to give it a careful dusting but had a problem working out how it opened. I may have to do some further research on this one. However one thing I ascertained was that the focus of the heating through the back cover appeared to be an elongated rectangular insert which looked much like a socket (but wasn't) and was surrounded by a metal casing. You could tell it wasn't a socket as it had no holes to plug anything into. It lies towards the same corner of the laptop where the inlet and outlet of the fan are located.

Has anyone any ideas on this?
 
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#2 ·
Run a temperature monitor like CoreTemp. (direct download link)

check to see what temps you are seeing.

As to the problem, you haven't said what laptop you have, and how old it is.

It's possible it needs a good clean out, and make sure that there are no vents being blocked.
 
#4 ·
I guessed it might need an internal dusting, however I wasn't absolutely certain.

Already tried Core Temp. It gives a core temperature reading of over 70C while performing an ordinary activity like surfing the net.

I wonder if its the fan itself that's causing the heat problem which is localised towards the air intake and outlet? Possibly the fan is clogged up with dust and this is creating a friction problem.

Will try opening it up again tomorrow, hopefully with more success this time.

It's a Lenovo Thinkpad T410 which is on the old side these days.
 
#6 ·
70oC while being hot is still considered normal. I have machines that do 90o and that is still 'within acceptable range' for heat. It will feel hot when it's blowing out.

It could be that the thermal paste needs changing too (worse case)
Are you saying it's normal for a laptop fan to blow out hot air? I've not noticed it before on my laptop and the fan is on continually which I'm fairly certain it wasn't before.

I've just viewed an instructional video for opening my make of laptop and it looks a complete nightmare. You have to take literally everything apart just to access the fan! More than a dozen screws have to be undone which come in a number of different sizes. You have to remove the CD player, remove the hard disk drive and unplug and remove the keyboard. Solving the Rubik's Cube looks easier!
 
#7 ·
That is what the fan does in a laptop. The question is what is causing the higher heat. One possible issue is that the thermal paste is worn down. Another issue is that the CPU is showing it's age and is running hotter. A 3rd would be the dust build up... or... all 3 at the same time :)
 
#9 ·
Oh that Thinkpad.... that can be a pain to do. Opening the laptop should not spoil the paste. Since the heatsink has to be removed to get to the fan then you would want to get new paste on there. If you feel like you are uncomfortable, I would suggest taking it to an independent shop to look at it.
 
#10 ·
Is there no way of cleaning the fan and outlets externally without opening the laptop?

I noticed that the inlet and outlets are almost directly connected to the fan itself and are part of the same unit.

What is also strange is how suddenly the problem came about in the first place.
 
#13 ·
The Thinkpad T410's release date is showing as Jan 2010, so the machine is 11 years old. If it's not been clean before, then more than likely its dust build up. From my experience and a quick google search, thermal paste generally is effect for up to 5-10 years, depending on the quality. If you are going to clean out the fan, I would recommend replacing the paste too.
 
#15 ·
I've just put the laptop into shutdown and unplugged it and blew a lung full of air through the air inlet [putting the air inlet fully to my lips in the manner of a harmonica], and there wasn't the slightest hint of any resistance or any dust coming out of the outlet.

I could hear the fan whizzing around as I blew and further the air that came out while I was blowing was still hot.

As I've already suggested, it may not be a problem with the fan being clogged up with dust but some electronic component with the laptop that is producing excess heat.
 
#20 ·
Most likely the squirrel cage fan it’s self a
has accumulated dust over a period of time. Just look at the blades on a ceiling fan or portable box fan you will notice dirt accumulated on the blades if not cleaned regularly.

Same way with then small blades on the fan, but actually worse as it is smaller in size and dust particles are hugh to it.
while in there it is past time to clean the cooked grease off the CPU and heat sink and replace with a good quality grease.

if it’s been 10 years and just now showing problems you either don’t use it much or use it in a abnormal clean environment. Dust the components off with a fine brush while in there also. They produce heat and covered with dust makes it hard to transfer the heat from them to the outside environment.

That should fix you up. If not then unless you can troubleshoot components you will have to take it to a shop for professional repair.
Good luck
 
#22 ·
If it is still under any form of warranty then that is the best route to take, get the supplier to check it you have concerns. Doing anything yourself could invalidate that warranty.
Signs of improvement.

Could the problem have fixed itself?

While using the laptop last night it seemed to be uncharacteristically slow and was stalling. So I quickly checked the internal temperature with Core Temp and the temp seemed okay. I then checked whether the CPU was busy with Task Manager and that seemed okay. But then shortly after this the computer ground to a halt and the screen completely froze. The computer was not responding in anyway at all and I couldn't help thinking "Well that's it! It's broken!"

I forced a shutdown and the computer seemed to reboot okay but was still labouring for sometime after this. However gradually the PC seemed to return to normal and was no longer labouring.

However one important change that has occurred, the laptop is no longer blasting out hot air, but the air is now only vaguely warm and the fan is no longer on continually but will switch itself off now and then.

The only thing I did different last night that I can think of is that I downloaded the latest update of the Firefox browser. And coincidentally I was using the Firefox browser when the computer froze.

Could this mean that the original problem was actually a software issue and not hardware? Had some microchip been affected by a "bug"?

What are your opinions?
 
#31 · (Edited)
Check Disk verifies files - it has nothing to do with the condition of the hard drive.
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Scann...-amp-Copy-but-prints-blank-pages/td-p/7495381

I looked at the specs
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd006109-detailed-specifications-thinkpad-t410
but can't tell what brand hd is in your laptop. Most manufacturers have software to check.

Can you find the details of the hard drive?
This site http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/lenovo-thinkpad-t410-review/
seems to indicate that your 11 year old laptop has a Seagate hard drive.
It isn't unreasonable to assume that an 11 year old hard drive might be failing.

Get Sea Tools
https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/
 
#34 ·
The clicking is NOT coming from the hard drive. The HD is in the opposite corner to where the clicking is coming from. The clicking is coming from where the light indicates the PC is busy and presumably the clicking sound is designed to indicate the same thing.

It's not impossible the problem was MALWARE. Since running a virus scan while connected to the internet, the problem seems to have gone.
 
#35 ·
That is a possibility that software was taxing the CPU so much it was causing more heating than usual.

The fan seems to be working as it would normally do.
There's further evidence it's software that's producing the heat and not a hardware issue.

When playing chess offline, very little heat is produced but playing backgammon offline produces quite a lot of heat and the fan is on continually.

Browsing the internet also generates some heat but I am yet to try different browsers to see if it's a browser related issue.
 
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