High Pitch sound from T60 Fan

[Truthfinder]

Good evening One and All:

MY wife noticed a high pitch sound the othe day, however, I didn't pick up on it. Today, again she heard the same sound. I placed my T60 air vent next to my ear and I can detect the slight high pitch sound. Is this normal or is there an issue with my fan?
My T60 is still covered uner the Warn. Is the fan user replaceable? Also, should I request the just the fan or is there more to it?

Keep in mind that the sound it is making is very slight, however, my wife can detect it from across the room. I can only notice it if I listen real hard.

Kindest Regards, Steve

[Harryc]

If it's under warranty send it in. A fan is not a customer replaceable item, according to Lenovo. Can you learn how to replace it correctly? Sure, but why bother if you have a warranty. There will be guys jumping on this thread telling you to blow canned air into the fan cavity, maybe the 'oil trick' dude will stop by the thread...all up to you. You can basically get at the top of the fan itself by removing the keyboard. Hold the fan blades still and blast away with canned air. This is a dust removal procedure. Could dust cause the noise?...sure, but more than likely a high pitched noise is a bearing in need of lubrication or wearing out.

[Charles Mann]

HarryC is right on…send it in for warranty repair. I experienced fan problems with my T60p, did the canned air, then had “fan error” trouble and GPU high temperature, so sent in under warranty. They replaced the fan..lower GPU temp..no “fan error”. I have just extended my warranty two more years..until 2011. Maybe Lenovo will have something comparable to FlexView by then.

Charles

[Johan]

Steve:

Two questions; 1) Is this noise "new" - in the sense that you/your wife have first heard/noticed it very recently? and 2) Is the noise the same whether running on mains or running off the battery?

If "yes" to 1), I agree with the above posters, that it might very well be the fan (although I have never personally heard this high-pitched noise in a T60) but if the noise only occur when running off battery... then it however might be something quite different; see the thread Fan Whine and especially this post and the links pointed to therein. You may also try search the T6x forum for "high pitched" to learn more about possible causes of this noise. Now that your T60 fortunately still is under warranty, the easiest thing is of course to send it in for repair. Remember to remove the HDD before doing this (if...!). kindly let's know how this affair ends.

Johan

[Truthfinder]

Hi again group:

Well, I've come to realize that this high Pich sound has been with my T-60 since day one. This evening I removed the Palm-Rest and Keyboard in order to get a look inside and around the fan..... Yes, there was a very slight amount of dust, less than normal to say the least..... I cleaned it up and did some other housekeeping. With this being said, I put the Palm and Keyboard back together and fired up the unit. Guess what ? The noise is still there, loud and clear. However, ONLY when using battey to power the unit. When I plug in the AC, the high pich sound goes bye bye............

Also, I removed my DVD burner and can hear the same sound when placing the opening near to my ear when running on battery.

I believe the fan is NOT the issue, but is being caused by the electronics used to run the unit utilizing battery power.

I'm sure this is not a new problem and both IBM and Lenovo have got to have known about this for a good long time. My question is, why haven't the brain surgeons who design these things come up with a fix? Come on, it can't all be about spending an extra .50 cents per unit that keeps them from making this right............ Right !

I'm able to deal with the noise, hoever, I'm sure there are prople out there who are ready to pull their hair out over this. COME ON LENOVO, WE KNOW YOU ARE LISTENING IN. How about a real answer...........


Steve

[Johan]

I believe the fan is NOT the issue, but is being caused by the electronics used to run the unit utilizing battery power.

Steve: You may very well be right - but in order not to spread this discussion too much, please see the thread Fan Whine and especially this post and the link pointing to the very detailed, professional explanation by jimmy274 in the thread My 7th thinkpad and... NOISE!... the specific post I want to point your attention to is this.

Didn't anybody really try to fix this... by e.g. applying some acoustic damping material? (like epoxy?), or would applying this perhaps would this give rise to heat dissipation problems?

Johan