Thinkpads Forum

My wife and i both have a X60s that we use ~8-9 hours per day. I replaced the fan and heat sink assembly with an original Lenovo part 2 years ago (original fans lasted 4 years of heavy use). The new replacement fans only lasted 14 months before they started making a lot of noise. I stripped them both and greased the spindles as described but 5 months later they are noisy again. One of the fans seems to have failed as I get the the fan error on boot.

Is there is a better option than just replacing the fan and heat sink assembly with another new original part like replacing just the fan part with another "better" quality fan? I can't believe that the new fans only lasted 14 months. Have Lenovo dropped the ball with the quality on the replacement fans? I don't fancy re-greasing them every 4-5 months either.

As you have discovered, once those fans get noisy, one cannot restore them to a quiet state. There exist multiple variants of the X60s/X61s heatsink/fan assemblies -- some have the fan integral to the heatsink, and others have a removable/replaceable fan. However, even on the heatsinks where the fan is built-on, it is possible to remove the fan "surgically", then replace it with a one of the removable fans.

Heansink/fan variants:
http://tinyurl.com/lnzpq3u

Replacing just the fan is more convenient than removing/replacing the entire assembly, so you might want to consider doing what it takes to have a heatsink/fan assembly on which only the fan needs to be replaced. Here are the fans:
http://tinyurl.com/lg4ubez

Thanks for the reply. Well I decided to just re-grease the fan again to get me going until I decide what to do. I'll most probably just get another complete fan heatsink replacement again and hope it lasts longer than 14 months this time. Before I install it I may open the fan and grease the spindle as I read somewhere that they are not greased from the factory. Don't know if that's true or not but it can't hurt I guess.