A20m fan not turning in Windows XP

[theseus23]

My Thinkpad A20m started having random crashes a few days ago. Sometimes, after crashing, the laptop boots up fine again right away. Sometimes, the laptop does not boot up at all again until 20 or more minutes later. It seems that the random crashes might be caused by an overheated CPU due to the fan not turning. I noticed that the fan is turning when I boot-up the laptop. But as soon as Windows XP starts loading, the fan stops turning . As far as I can observe, the fan does not resume turning at all. Will replacing the fan assembly solve the problem? Or is it the temperature sensor that needs to be replaced? After all, the fan seems to be turning fine during boot-up. I looked at the A20m manual from IBM's support site. There is no mentioning of replacing the temperature sensor. Is the temperature sensor located somewhere on the fan assembly?

I would appreciate any tips you might have. Thanks.

J.T.

[IdLaFie]

I just recently downloaded a program called "SpeedFan" Ver. 4.28 (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php) and am running it on my TP G41 laptop now. From what I've oberved on my laptop, the internal laptop fan doesn't really cool the inside components down very well. I can hear the fan running very quietly but not like when updating the BIOS...the fan's running flat out!!

With the "Speed Fan" program I am able to monitor internal temperatures but I haven't figured out how to get the "Speed Fan" program to turn the laptop fan on once temperatures start to rise. About the only time I notice the internal laptop fan kicking in, is when internal temps start to hit 160 degrees Farenheit....but by then, my video card has taken all the brunt of the CPU heat. Try running the SpeenFan program...it should give you an idea of internal temps of your computer

Anyhow, hope this helps...ID