Thinkpads Forum

Just picked up a 600x from Ebay. Everything works great but the fan towards the back of the left side has a loud whining sound.

Is there some way to fix this? I guess it's not too bad as long as it's not a sign of a bigger problem. Thanks!

Probably the bearings (??) starting to act up. You may be getting close to a replacement of the fan assembly. Fairly easy to get to if you follow the directions in the HMM for the 600X:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4DGNTQ

Part number to search eBay is 08K5909, unless you have a 2645-5Fx or -9Fx model, then the FRU is 08K6290 (part numbers from the HMM). Or you can post a "wanted" ad in the Marketplace.

Thanks. It's a 2645-9WU, so I'll be looking for the 08K5909 fan. Installation doesn't seem too bad. From the HMM, it looks like the fan just has 2 screws to connect to the CPU, 2 screws to the main board, and a power cable.

edit: do you flip the keyboard up to get access to the CPU?

The HMM deals with the MMC2 cpu and Fan as one unit.
There are 5 screws holding the fan/cpu assembly to the system board (well 1 is really a pcmcia cage screw, but it also holds a retaining arm that rests on the corner of the CPU card) and I think 2 or 3 holding the fan onto the cpu.

To get to the cpu there are 10 screws underneath and 1 on the top left of the keyboard to remove - see page 44-45 of HMM. Be careful of the 2 ribbon cables (keyboard/mouse and speakers) when u lift the keyboard as they can be easy to damage.
You can bend back the plastic modem cable guide rail at the back of the drive bay to make it easier to remove the cpu assembly.

Also - a 9WU is a speedstep 600X (650Mhz cpu), as are the 5Fx and 9Fx Ray quotes above, so you can upgrade the CPU up to 850Mhz ... the fastest MMC2 cpu intel made.

I also hear a loud whining when I am on my thinkpad - but that is just the wife ....

How do you remove the covers over the screws? Do you use a small flathead screwdriver to pry it out? Is it possible to put them back in? Thanks.

jimmyl930 wrote:How do you remove the covers over the screws? Do you use a small flathead screwdriver to pry it out?

I assume you mean the black plastic disks covering the screws on the outside of the machine. Personally, I use an XACTO knife and pull up slowly and gently at the disk edge. There is an adhesive underneath the disk holding it in place, so you have to pull up hard enough to free it from the adhesive, but not so hard that you bend it. I've also used a safefy pin (which bent some of the disks) and a razor blade (which scratched/cut some of the disks), but I've had the most success with an XACTO knife.

jimmyl930 wrote:Is it possible to put them back in?

Yes, but be careful to try and retain as much stickiness on the bottoms as possible. And above all, try not to bend the disks as you pull them off. Eventually (after multiple removals) the light glue will wear off and you'll have to find some kind of adhesive to keep them stuck back in while still allowing them to be pried off. If a disk becomes bent, then it never really goes back in place correctly again. After the first removal, subsequent removals are much easier and there is generally no worry about bending/damaging the disks anymore.

Phil.

What I recommend when removing the discs, stick them on kitchen wax paper!! If you bend any, lay a heavy book on them for the while you have the patient on the OR table.

I use double sided adhesive tape to stick screw covers back on (and port covers for that matter) - less messy than glue can be.

> I also hear a loud whining when I am on my thinkpad - but that is just the wife ....
Solenoid crap! That's so funny!

So now I have the keyboard open, but I can't seem to flip it back very far. I can see the two ribbon cables I need to remove (p.45 on the HMM), but I can't get the opening big enough to reach them.

Any ideas on how to flip the keyboard out more?

Thanks.

Update:

So I figured out how to remove the keyboard and the fan.

On the end of the fan that contacts the cpu, there is still a thin gray layer of thermal grease, but it's cracked on one side. Is this regular thermal grease? Anyone know how to reapply it?

I'm probably going to clean everything with compressed air since the laptop is open. Anything else I could do while it's open?

Thanks.

After reading some other threads, it seems like the gray thing between the CPU and fan is actually a rubber thermal pad. Could I replace this with something like Arctic Silver 5? Or would I have to apply thermal grease on top of this? As I said in my last post, there is a small crack in one corner.

Thanks.