Thinkpads Forum

My T60 2613-CTO has developed a strange new noise since I replaced its cooling fan a few weeks ago. It's making intermittent clicks. The clicks come in clusters, lasting maybe ten or twenty seconds, with periods of at least a few minutes between clusters. During one of these clusters, the clicks average around 1 per second.

I've had this machine apart many times and don't recall any mechanical parts around where the noise seems to originate. The noise is quite a ways from the hard drive and the cooling fan.

Any thoughts as to what's going on?

Thanks for any suggestions.

I'd say that is a fan out of 'whack', clicking louder when spinning faster
Try another fan.

RealBlackStuff wrote:I'd say that is a fan out of 'whack', clicking louder when spinning faster
Try another fan.

But the new sound comes from the other side of the computer. I got all-too-well-acquainted with fan noise before I replaced my defective one, so I'm pretty confident this isn't a fan.

I popped the DVD drive out and noticed the left-hand end of its assembly would be at the right spot to originate the noise I'd been hearing. The sound went away, too, so for a few minutes I thought maybe I'd located its source. It turned out I was wrong though, as the sound came back again while the DVD was out.

tpfancontrol might help you confirm that the noise does happen when the fan's not spinning. And it'll give you finer control on the rpm's, so you can play with vibrations. You could also see if removing the keyboard or hard drive changes anything. Use a USB keyboard. Load a live CD/USB when you've just got some web surfing to do. You can run without the pamlrest too. Having the keyboard off may help you locate the sound better too.

Are you sure you are not presuming the wrong location for the source of the noise, and it's just the hard drive? It's not far from there.