Fan Error on T41p

[sarah_t]

Hi,
On firing up my T41p this morning, I got 'Fan Error' and it switched itself off. It was working fine last night, it's never had a fan error before - and it had been off for eight hours, so there's been no heat surge to overload the fan. Before I go on a long gloomy search for a replacement, installation instructions, etc., does anyone know if there are any other causes of Fan Error besides fan death? And could the error possibly be caused by dust? The laptop does live in a fairly dusty environment.

Many thanks for any help you can give,
- Sarah, the tragically laptopless

[Brad]

Welcome to the forum!

I would try a new fan before anything else. It is the least expensive and not that difficult to install.

The Lenovo hardware manuals on their website can be downloaded and reviewed and contain all the necessary instructions.

Feel free to ask any questions that you may have. If you run into any difficulties most likely someone here has too and can share their solutiion.

Brad

[Nick Y]

I had to replace my daughter's T41p fan recently and so I ordered it on-line from Lenovo as there have been many comments about dead fans on Ebay. Drawbacks were that it was initially out of stock, so I had to wait 6 weeks. (She had to use our spare Gateway...) Also fan was roughly £16 with a £15 additional handling charge! Once it arrived it took about 10 mins to install.

BTW, if you are not running anything requiring a lot of processing power, you can press ESC when the fan error comes up and the laptop will continue booting.

[sarah_t]

Brad and Nick, thanks for your replies - it's good to know that replacing the fan isn't too complicated. And thanks for the tip about pressing ESC - hopefully I'll be able to get in and do some backing up, as it sounds like it's going to be out of action for a while. Drat, I was so hoping it was just dust. :(
£15 handling charge! Ouch! Hasn't anyone found a reputable ebay seller?

- Sarah

[Nick Y]

If it is any help (depends on your model number, i.e. T41p-2373-GEG in my case) my T41p fan had a part number 13R2657. There also appears to have alternative part number of 41W5204.

I am not sure of the difference between the two part numbers, although I thought that they referred to the same item under different stock codes.

I hope that the above helps you when searching for cheaper replacement.

[albo]

I had to replace the fan in my T43. Still under warranty, lenovo sent it out next day. Hard to imagine that they were actually out of stock.

Regardless, the toughest part of replacing the fan was prying off the part from the CPU. It's stuck on there with some thermal paste, which seems to bond to the chip. It was a little nerve-wracking, because if you're not careful, you can take a chunk off the CPU, or crack something, etc. Everything came out fine - but just take your time with that part of the operation. My replacement time was definitely more than 10 minutes. Perhaps the T41 is different than the 43, but I doubt it.

Regardless, it's still definitely possible to do.

allie

[Moroner]

I had to replace my Fan Long (M10), and it turned out to be a pretty straightforward operation.

The replacement fan (in my case a 41W5204 for a T42p) already comes with thermal grease applied at the position of the CPU core, so no further stuff needed there.

As for taking it off, it turned out that the CPU was an non-issue, but the thermal pad for the GPU was sticking like glue, so having a very thin tool to slide into there to get it off is a good idea (and to maybe heat the area a bit before). I used a miniature screwdriver normally used for glasses, and I only dared to use it on the GPU surface because it is a metal plate, so the chance for you to destroy anything is rather remote. Really be sure to just move it in horizontally, because any attempt to move it up or down will leave marks, which could lead to worse fitting of the thermal pad with corresponding thermal problems later.

Note that the CPU is not protected like the M10 GPU, so you need to be very careful there and should avoid using tools if possible.

If you decide to continue to use your laptop with a broken fan by escaping the fan error message, I would get the current version of Notebook Hardware Control ( http://www.pbus-167.com/ ) and use it to restrict your CPU speed so your system does not overheat too much. 800 MHz should be a safe starting point to check out, you want your CPU stay below 75 degrees Celcius.

One question to those more knowledgeable than me, what is the normal temperature difference between the GPU and CPU in idle?