Thinkpads Forum

Hi everyone,

I just purchased a Lenovo T400 on craigslist today and I'm pretty excited about it. I have owned nothing but Apple computers for the last 18 years. I had a MacBook Pro until two weeks ago, when it was stolen from my desk at school. I was really bummed out as I used it for fun (on Mac OS X) and for school and work (on Windows 7).

I had always been interested in buying a ThinkPad because I knew they were ideal for business (the industry I am going into) and because I was always a fan of the industrial design. I thought having my MBP stolen was a bittersweet opportunity to get myself a ThinkPad.

Luckily, I was able to find a great deal on a ThinkPad on Craigslist last night. After doing some research I met up the owner and checked out the computer and went ahead and bought it. I now own a T400 with a 2.8ghz core 2 duo and 4gb of ram.

So now my question is... what are some recommended accessories for this little guy? The previous owner gave me a 6-cell battery as well as a 9-cell battery. I was thinking of buying another power adapter to keep at home and a docking station. The prices for these two items seem pretty cheap so I think I'm going to go for it. Is there anything else I should look into?

What are some other common things you ThinkPad owners would do if you had just bought a T400? Any mods or anything you recommend?

Welcome to the forum. What are the machine Type/Model#'s from the sticker on the bottom of the T400?

Do you have switchable graphics? The T400's GPU is fairly weak nowadays; coming in at half the speed of the Sandy Bridge integrated graphics. The T400 cooling is good enough to tolerate overclocking the HD3470, although you should swap out the thermal paste for AS5 or MX3 or something.

Critical items to have are some 70% isopropyl alcohol for wiping down the screen and a nice microfiber cloth.

If you have the WXGA screen, I'd try to swap in an WXGA+ screen.

I'm waiting for my T400 to get here! I'm making a very large list of accessories. I have been looking into a ThinkPad advanced dock for better graphics, (you can put in a desktop GPU) an SSD, more memory, a good messenger bag, a new battery, a 2nd hard drive for the ultrabay, an ultrabay battery, the list goes on. Mine has the LED WXGA+ with switchable graphics, and 4GB of memory.

Ok so after a few days with my new laptop, I turned it on this morning and got a 'fan error' message. It subsequently shut off. I tried to restart it over and over again but it did not help. I downloaded an application called tpfancontrol indicates a fan speed of 0rpm. I'm pretty upset now.

I tried swapping batteries and making sure the battery was locked in, but this did not remedy the issue. The fan has never been noisy since I bought it and the laptop has always remained cool. Is there a software fix to this or do I have to replace the fan? I believe the laptop is not under warranty.

I appreciate any and all responses.

There could be dust in the fan that stops it from spining - try putting a pin/small screwdriver between the vents to hold the blades still, then use a vacum to suck any dust out. If you can't try that, try just blowing gently in the vents and see if that helps.

Thank you for the suggestion. I am not quite sure what you mean by "stopping the blades from spinning" because tpfacontrol says the fan is not spinning at all. I think I will try blowing into the vent after I power down soon. Is there a harm in running it with no fan only for small periods? What is a normal CPU temperature for the laptop to be operating under?

Thanks again, everyone.

Take off the keyboard, see if the fan spins freely. Make sure the connector for the heatsink/fan part is firmly attached.

EDIT: If you underclock AND force the CPU to minimum, I think you can get away with running it without the fan spinning for a while.

That said, the laptop will refuse to boot if you have a fan error for good reason.

T400 HMM:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 70069.html

EDIT2: The CPU should be around 40 to 45 degrees Celsius under light usage.

Thanks again. Just to clarify (I was great at taking my MacBook apart, but am not an expert on ThinkPads), I take the keyboard off using the instructions on page 106 of the HMM PDF (page 98 of the manual), right?

Also, once I have done this, how exactly do I test if it spins freely? Do I power up the laptop with the keyboard off or what exactly do I do? Sorry for the million questions but I just want to make sure I do this correctly.

just blow gently on it, see if it goes. If it does, plug in the keyboard connector, hit the power button - the fan should spin up then stop. If not, see if it looks dusty inside - I know my dad's T61 had the fan error once, he blew it out and never had it again - all the fan error means is that the fan is not spinning for whatever reason during POST.

IMHO thinkpads are alot easier to work on than macbooks, just follow the HMM and you should not have any issues.

The stopping the blades from spinning is becasue if you stick a vacum onto the vent and turn it on, the fan will spin substantially faster than it is designed to - this just prevents you from overspeeding and breaking the fan.

use compressed air.

the tip of a vacuum hose will generate far too much static charge to be safe near any kind of circuit board. (depends on vacuum, though)

craigmontHunter wrote:The stopping the blades from spinning is becasue if you stick a vacum onto the vent and turn it on, the fan will spin substantially faster than it is designed to - this just prevents you from overspeeding and breaking the fan.

Even more important is the fact that motors generate power when rotated. Using a vaccum cleaner without preventing the fan from spinning would send a charge to the motherboard and could damage it.

OK So I got to the fan today and it actually did have a little dust on it. I cleaned all of the dust out (I think) but it does not spin. When I blow on it, whether it be blowing with my mouth or blowing with compressed air, the fan does not spin or just barely spins a little. If I spin it with my fingers, it does spin but there is definitely some resistance.

I am really not sure if the fan is getting enough power, or if there is something stuck in it, or if a bearing is broken or it needs some grease in there to spin more freely. I am really confused on this... what I don't understand the most is.. how did the laptop run so well when I first got it? How come it never got hot and how come the fan never made a single noise?

Here is a picture of the fan after I cleaned the dust out:




What should be my next step in trying to get this fixed? Any help is appreciated guys.

Replace the fan. It should spin freely.

Try this:
Take the heatsink/fan assembly out, push inwards on the back of the center of the fan.

OK I am going to try this tonight. Just to clarify - I need to take off the keyboard bezel and speaker assembly before removing the fan, right?

Also, it seems from the HMM that there is no connectors attached to the fan? How can this be? Doesn't the fan need to connect to something in order to get power? The HMM makes no mention of a fan connector.

I kind of do not understand the whole thermal grease step either. Is the fan stuck to the heatsink with some sort of adhesive and will it be hard to remove?

Sorry I am asking so many questions but this really seems more difficult than I thought it would be.

The HMM doesn't list that keyboard brace, so you'll need to remove that as well. Seven or eight small screws hold it in place.

There's a little connector on the lower left of the heatsink assembly. It's step 7 on page 120.

The heatsink should come off fairly easily. Avoid touching the thermal paste, that way you should be able to get away with not replacing it. The fan is encapsulated into the heatsink assembly itself. It should become evident once the HSF assembly comes out and you flip it over.

I need to do some cleaning for my T61 fan as well. I do have the HMM PDF file.

Any other tips and thoughts, words of caution please?

I dont have any Thermal Grease right now, but I could buy some on Ebay and have it shipped to India.. or have a friend bring it to me after 15 days from the US when he visits.

The question is can I avoid the whole doing the Thermal Grease thing?

And if I do go that way, which compound to use?

This is pretty crazy but after taking it apart a few weeks ago, I realized that I was going to have an extremely busy next few weeks and I better leave this project for later.

So I started working on it tonight, simply spinning the fan with my finger over and over trying to feel and listen for what was making it spin so roughly... and suddenly... it started to spin freely. I plugged in the power cable and powered it on... and the fan started spinning! I began to use it for a bit with a USB keyboard and mouse, and it continued to work. I now assembled everything back together and am typing this post on it right now.

I am so glad the fan works again and I have no idea how spinning it with my finger over and over managed to fix it, but I'll take it!

Something was inside the bearing. you dislodged it.