Hi,

My IBM laptop a few days ago starting making a really loud noise, i thought it was the hard drive so powered it off, the next day i started it up and all seemed fine and quiet, then it turned itself off. which i thought was weird, when i tried turning it on it said fan error, beeped and turned off again. So i now know that the fan probably stopped while in use and shut itself off. so hoping it hasn't done any damage.

I've since gone on ebay.ca and ordered a new replacement fan after pulling apart the laptop to get the part number so the fan should be on it's way in the next 5 days.

My problem is I can't for the life of me get off the fan, it looks like the black thermal paste has stuck really hard to the chip and i can't get anything under it to free it easily. I've read using a hair dryer is a possible solution but scared this heat might damage some circuitry?

I've taken a screen shot of my fan, with some arrows and text on it with some of my questions.

http://www.elmbrook.co.nz/downloads/ibmfan.jpg

Can someone check it out, really want to try and fix this myself without taking it to a shop, it's out of warranty.

Thanks
Tristan

The hair dryer doesn't get hot enough to damage the board. Another possible solution is using floss to separate the heatsink from the GPU.

And no, you don't need to remove the antenna wires connected to your wifi card.

I had this exact same problem when I tried replacing my fan. According to the Hardware Maintenance Manual, it looks like you can just easily pop the whole heatsink off with a screwdriver, but for many people the heatsink is practically glued to the GPU.

I've tried the floss method, and it didn't work as well as I had hoped (I ended up snapping the floss too many times with little effect on loosening the black GPU thermal paste.)

Eventually I got it off by using a very thin putty scraper (if that's what it's called). It's basically like a flexible steel spatula. I wedged it between the black gunk and the GPU from all sides with a rotating motion while maintaining firm pressure toward the center of the GPU. This process was quite slow (took a few hours) but finally it separated.

Once this was done, I just lifted the the heatsink per the manual and like you did in the photo.

For me it I found it easier to take the entire WiFi card out but keeping the antennas attached before the GPU/heatsink separation procedure.

Thanks, as soon as my fan arrives i'll give it a try.

Appreciate the help.