T30 Fan Noise

[ArtShapiro]

I'm about to upgrade my T30 to a T42, purchased from the Marketplace forum here and due to arrive in a couple more days.

The T30 will be given to a relative, who had a few problems with the T20 I gave her when I got the T30. I've been working on the returned T20, but decided it was getting a little old to cope with the demands of bigger bloatware these days. And it gave me an excuse to upgrade!

There's one problem with the T30 that I'd like to remedy before I send it off: the fan is quite noisy, sounding a lot like an old "American Five" tube radio with deteriorating capacitors - the 120 Hz. hum that I'm sure rings a bell with many folks here.

I haven't yet taken anything apart on the T30, and of course have the HMM, but I'd like to at least pose the question to everyone. Is this likely to be as simple as dirt in the fan assembly, or could it be a little more significant (bearings, etc.) necessitating replacement?

I'd welcome any voices of experience before I pull this guy apart.

Art

[underclocker]

Cleaning the fan is the best first step.

Here's an example from the T4x forum;

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=32519

Good luck.

[tfflivemb2]

If you don't mind me asking...what's wrong with the T20? Are you getting rid of it?

[ArtShapiro]

Yesterday I went through the official procedure (but I have no idea why they want the cmos battery, battery, CD drive, and hard drive pulled). Found I was missing two screws in the process - one that holds the hard drive in place, and another one holding the case together, not relevant to this procedure. (Should I worry?) The fan appeared to have no dust on it, to my surprise. This was in my office, so I had no air supply other than my lungs. I blew a few times and brushed off the adjacent fins, which likewise appeared clean. I'll see today if that made a difference. Maybe I'll use my leafblower on it - my standard, if oddball, source of massive quantities of air! Yeah, I'll hold the fan when I do that.

The T20 was returned to me due to a Windows profile self-destruct, which was completely beyond the recipient's abilities to cure. I fixed it and maxed the machine to 512 megs from 384 before deciding to give her the T30. In the process of shipping, somehow both lid latches had broken off! I bought a bunch on eBay (ten were cheaper than one) and have the lid apart, but haven't yet figured out how to remove the existing latches. My ability to see small things has gotten rather discouragingly bad in recent years, and I haven't yet taken the magnifying lamp to the T20. Any hints? The HMM doesn't mention this assembly. As for its disposition, I was leaning toward donating it to the handicapped gentleman who runs the Usenet telecom forum (comp.dcom.telecom), as the ancient machine I'd previously sent to him can only run Win95 and WinNT. But if you had something more interesting in mind, let me know.

Art

[tfflivemb2]

The latches are pretty easy to change out. You can do it by just removing the LCD bezel. The latches sit in a track at the top, with a spring holding it in place.

I believe that you just slide the latch all the way to one direction, and up and out at an angle.

EDIT: Depending on the price, I might consider taking it off you hands. You could just send it with the latches and not have to worry about changing them out. Although, donating might be the right thing to do.

[ArtShapiro]

I'd guess a T20 isn't worth particularly much, so the little bit of cash I'd get isn't a big issue to me.

I have exceedingly poor three-D perception (I believe I was in the second percentile when they tested that sort of stuff back in high school!) so when you say "up" I'm not sure in what plane we're talking. But it might be more obvious under magnification. I see the springs holding the latches in the closed positions. The unit has sat for several weeks in the disassembled state, and alas hasn't cured itself. Funny thing. Maybe I'll tackle that tonight.

All this may be academic if the T42 doesn't make some progress. It is supposed to be here tomorrow, but FedEx shows it stuck in Texas since Friday. They (FedEx) lost the T20 for two months when I originally sent it to my sister. After a month, figuring it was beyond hope, I bought her another (Dell) laptop. It was a jaw-dropper when they found the T20, loose with no package and everything else missing, and managed to track it to me by powering it up and looking around things like the Outlook address book.