Thinkpads Forum

For the last month my fan has been acting up. It alternates between making a lot of noise and running smoothly. Today TPFanControl suddenly stopped being able to read the speed of the fan. It says 0 RPM even though the fan is obviously running. (I currently have it manually set to remain at it's top speed of 7) At the time that it happened, the fan was making a lot of noise and running slow. Right now it is running fast and quiet but TPFan still reads 0 RPM. I'm afraid to turn off my laptop for fear that it will refuse to boot and give me the same "Fan Error" I got one time recently after the fan had started acting up (to fix it, I placed a vacuum by the vent and it un-stuck the fan).

Does the fact that TPFan is now unable to recognize that the fan is running mean that the BIOS will be unable to detect it at startup as well? I'm afraid to shut down my laptop for fear that it won't start up again.

Running a vacuum at the fan quite helped it quite a bit on it's way to an untimely death .
You should replace your fan ASAP, and don't forget to clean/replace the thermal paste as well!

I thought using a vacuum was a good way to clean it?? Is blowing air preferred to vacuuming?

When cleaning the fan, you should stop the fan itself from spinning (use e.g. a toothpick, or even hold with your finger), and then you can use a vacuum or compressed air, or whatever else you have.
Use a small brush to properly clean the blades of the fan. Then blow the dust out again.

The fan probably runs up to ca. 5,000rpm while normally connected, but a vacuum/compressed air can cause it to spin in excess of 10,000rpm, way too much for such a fragile construction.