Thinkpads Forum

So my fan was running fairly noisy, and sounded almost like a diesel truck before it died and gave me fan error upon start up. So I'm guessing its time to replace it? I see a lot of them on ebay, but are they OEM or aftermarket/counterfeits? (sorry, i come from the world of cell phone and a lot of "OEM" screens and parts are NOT)
How hard would this be? The extent of my computer repair skills are swapping out RAM.

Thanks

Most fans you see are OEM. There are 2 choices: Integrated graphics (Intel) or Discrete (separate). They use different fans. It isn't hard to change. You need to seat the fan with Thermal paste onto the CPU.

I recently had the same thing happen. The noise you described sounds just like mine. I also got the fan error on startup thereafter. If you are still in warranty, obviously you would want to get the fan replaced through warranty coverage. I'm assuming you are not or you wouldn't have written to the forum about this. In my case, I ordered the fan from ThermalFX. I can definitely recommend them. As for the difficulty level for the replacement, if you can follow instructions there are videos on how do disassemble a Thinkpad at Lenovo Service and Support Training.

Once you get there, on the left side you should see a menu where you can select Notebooks / Thinkpad / T60/T60p, then select "Videos" which should be the first item. You should get a pop-up window with "Service Videos" in the title bar. On the menu on the left select "Fru Removals/Replacements". This will take you to another menu which will have a list of all the videos available.

You probably want to start with the Palm Rest video, then the Keyboard video, then the Bezel, and last of all the CPU fan. If you notice, there is an option to download the video at the bottom of each screen after you select, it. Selecting say the "Remove Palmrest" video makes the "Download Video" button appear and you can then download it. The download usually shows up after the video has finished.

I suggest you organize the screws you will be removing in some kind of container or ziplock baggy system so you can keep track of which screws go where as you'll have a lot of screws rolling around by the time you get everything removed. It's also not a bad idea to take a digital photo or two of the system, especially after you take the keyboard out. In the process of getting the fan out of mine one of the wires to the modem card came loose. Having a photo of the system before you remove anything can help you get it back together the way it was.

If you've replaced your ram you know you kind of have to work at getting the palm rest separated from the body and then set back in place. The same is true of the bezel behind the keyboard. Just keep working at it gently and it'll come loose and then go back in when you're done. I couldn't get the keyboard flat cable connector to come loose from the front. I had to turn the machine around and, holding the keyboard up from the back (with the LCD against my chest) gently lift the connector out of its socket. If you notice I think the guy in the video goes at it from the same angle.

The fan takes a little bit of gentle nudging to remove. But, if you keep at it it'll come loose. You can get the exact part number from the fan housing and use that to order your replacement from ThermalFX. I used their FedEx overnight and it was there the next day. They were very prompt, the part was exactly what I ordered and two months later it's still purring away. As far as I know they use refurbished parts taken from Thinkpads they purchase and dismantle. You could also order a new one from Lenovo, though I got tired of running their menu system to get the part I needed.

Good luck,
DenTP4rm

Thanks! Going to order the fan soon as I get some cash

Will the HD in it temporarily work in another T60 or will there be serious conflicts?

http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-T60-T60P-41V993 ... 286.c0.m14 Is this what I want? I have a 2623 D6U T60 with the ATI GPU

41V9932 is the correct part number fan for your machine.

Same thing with my T60. I have the same model as yours. I got IBM to replace the whole set just prior to the warranty expired and now it run silent like a rock.

GarageBoy wrote:Will the HD in it temporarily work in another T60 or will there be serious conflicts?

Assuming you are running the original install of Windows XP, your HD should work in another T60 if it's the same model number, i.e. another 2623 D6U. If it has all the same hardware there shouldn't be a problem. I personally have done that before and it worked.

If in doubt you would be better off waiting. If you put your HD in another machine with different hardware it could cause the Windows XP activation to kick in and you would have to "authenticate" that installation on that machine. If I'm not mistaken, at that point even putting it back into your original machine is just going to complicate matters further.

I can't say for sure, but I suspect this could happen even in another T60 but of a different model number which could have a different video card, wifi card, etc. Somebody else who's tried it might want to weigh in on this one. My suggestion would be to wait for the fan.

Thanks. The other T60 I have access to has Integrated Graphics, so I'm going to wait

Also, will Keyboard Bezel 41w6353 fit all 14.1" T60s?

GarageBoy wrote:Will the HD in it temporarily work in another T60 or will there be serious conflicts?

I can't give any guarantees but, if you don't mind installing drivers, your drive should work in a variety of machines.
Windows is not Linux and there are pitfalls but, if you haven't installed your own version of Windows, if the two Thinkpads are branded by same company (mixing Lenovo and IBM is what will get you into activation issues) and if they have the same IDE controller (I don't know if that's a problem with SATA but you'll at least have to pay attention to the AHCI BIOS setting with SATA), then you should have no issues. I hope I'm not forgetting any of the pitfalls but every issue can be worked around in any case. That said, I strongly recommend imaging your system or at least backing up the registry before messing with Windows. And remember: a backup isn't a backup if you haven't verified you'll be able to restore it.
EDIT: and moving a harddrive to a significatly different PC does qualify as "messing with Windows" in my book. I've done it many times but I don't believe Microsoft supports it. Also, unless you know what you're doing, be careful never to boot Windows when two Windows system drives are attached to the same PC.

So I swapped in a nice used fan into where the old dead one was and it works
Two questions
I forgot to remove the old grease off the core duo processor (do I need to?) will this be an issue
Also, the pads that cover the GPU and whatever the other processor is down there were a little deformed. Will this be an issue?

GarageBoy wrote:So I swapped in a nice used fan into where the old dead one was and it works
Two questions
I forgot to remove the old grease off the core duo processor (do I need to?) will this be an issue
Also, the pads that cover the GPU and whatever the other processor is down there were a little deformed. Will this be an issue?

You should clean all the thermal grease off both the heatsink assembly and the COU and use new grease when you install the heatsink - with residue still on the CPU it's doubtful you have as good a thermal contact as you could have.

The deformed thermal pads will possibly work although it would be better if you had new ones - though they are a bit hard to find.