Thinkpad X20 Type 2662-11U -- Fan does not spin at all

[starhawk]

Hello, all! I have a Thinkpad X20. It's a Type 2662-11U. (It took me embarrassingly long to realize what sticker I needed to look at for the three-character code. LOL.) I have the serial # if you folks need it, as well.

I received this from a friend of mine who was more interested in cleaning his closets than in keeping alive nice older systems the battery is very toast -- there's a bulge in the middle -- and I've removed it from the system until I can get it repaired or replaced (most likely replaced, although I have another friend who thinks he can replace the defective cell... he's certainly got the skill).

I have not inserted a wireless card in this system, but I'm planning on it later on, if I can avoid the infamous whitelist issue easily. I *have* removed the MiniPCI modem. It has no purpose except to waste electricity in that system, as far as I'm concerned, so it is gone.

The central problem is that the fan will not spin. I purchased a replacement heatsink assembly from eBay, to replace it -- came excellently packaged, went in well (once I got the Yellow Badge Of Thermal Shame off the blasted thing) but the fan still will not spin

Here's sum total everything I've done to this machine...
(1) removed modem, and (temporarily) HDD+caddy as well. (This will eventually go back.)
(2) replaced original thermal gunk on original heatsink assy., with copper based paste.
(3) removed fan rotor and oiled (WD-40) the fan guts on original heatsink assy.
(4) replaced entire heatsink assy., replacing thermal gunk again.

I don't know what OS is on the system, at the moment, although it's got a Win98SE key on the back -- I will be replacing it with Linux anyways, because that's just how I roll

At this point I'm really not sure what to do. I can shine a flashlight into the vent and see that the rotor isn't moving at all. I hope it's not something baked on the board -- I can solder most thru-hole stuff (chips must be socketed for me!), but not surface-mount parts. Of course there's not going to be much in the way of thru-hole in this old box...

Might take this to my local tech shop -- they're good friends of mine and sometimes do on-the-side stuff for me. But I figure I should ask the experts first, so here I am. What should I do next?

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

Failure for the fan to spin, assuming that both your original one and the replacement are functional, could be due to a blown fuse and/or switching transistor(s) on the motherboard. It's been awhile since I played with one of my X22 or X24 systems so I don't remember if the fan is supposed to spin up at boot for a few seconds and then stop. Also, check your Private Message (PM) inbox in a few minutes as there's additional information I will post there for your specific situation.

[starhawk]

Thank you!

I've got the PM and will follow the instructions within.

[starhawk]

According to what rkawakami had me do, the computer appears to believe that the fan is doing its job.

I'm really not sure how that works.

[starhawk]

To answer my own question: it works because the fan spins for ~2sec on bootup and, after that, not any more.

I think I need a different thread title (lol), and a replacement thermal sensor.

Anyone know where on the system board, the sensor is located?

[rkawakami]

My recommendation would be to run a memory diagnostic (such as memtest86+) to get the system hotter and see if that causes the fan to spin. Careful monitoring of the system's bottom case near the fan exhaust port should tell you if the CPU is getting too hot. You should also be able to see/hear/feel if the fan starts up.

BIOS/Embedded Controller should run a check on the fan subsystem when the laptop boots and report a "Fan error" message if it detects a problem. I don't know if it does the same for the temperature sensors; probably not since I don't recall there being any sort of error message in the Hardware Maintenance Manual for that situation.

[starhawk]

The area under the CPU (a soldered-in Celly 500 ) gets alarmingly warm just getting past the BIOS and its own internal boot-time memtest (which is the most annoying part of any ThinkPad -- is there a way to speed up or bypass that?).

[rkawakami]

BIOS has a setting for an "enhanced" memory check. I forget exactly what it's called but if you poke around the menus, you should be able to find it. The default should be "OFF", but somebody could have enabled it. Also, if you are still booting the system without a hard drive, that could take an extra few seconds before it realizes that there's no bootable drive. Sorry about the Celeron 500 . The other CPU option with the X20 was a PIII @ 600Mhz but it was also soldered in.

[starhawk]

Extended memory test is disabled. Still takes a full minute to test its RAM >.<

The T42 I had for a while did the same exact thing. Ticks me off, but I'm an impatient [censored]