Thinkpads Forum

I bought a really noisy t60 for cheap and I took apart the fan and quick clean and oil seemed to fix it fine.

Something similar like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryl3bpggRv4

When I took it apart, it looked like it was a brushless? type fan.

So the only thing that would 'wear out' would be the bearing or spindle?

When I repaired it I used chainsaw oil. It was the only oil I had, but it worked. Just a tiny drop on the spindle was enough to quiet the whole thing down.

In fact, it's quieter than my DD t60. Now that my DD is getting noisy, I"m considering getting the t500 fan, but with my previous experience, I'm wondering if it's no so much worn out, but instead just needs to be cleaned.

Yup; just oil it. The nasty thing is that you need to take apart half the laptop because they were not smart enough to make it so you can take the fan out from the top. And depending on the exact oil you used; it's gonna dry up again rather quickly.

The first time my T61 fan went loud, I bougt a new fan for like €45; I could have sent in the laptop under warranty, but I figured I'd just as well pay the 5 additional bucks and get the part. Super lousy thing was that the "IBM partcenter" could only make new customer accounts on wednesday.... so I had to wait close to a week. The next time it went loud I took it apart and oiled it. Next time it dries up... I'm gonna put a T9300 in there as well. But since it got the Intel video mainboard [....], the fan doesn't run as much.