What is this little extra fan for on my X61 ?

[fri_night_in_ninsei]

Hi. I have to X61 laptops and one of them has a small fan (in addition to the CPU fan assembly) just to the left of the modem. The X61 with the extra fan is a T7300. The one without the extra fan is a T8100.

[TPFanatic]

X60 became notorious for palmrest heat on the right side, from the stock WLAN and WWAN cards. A second fan and ventilation are added under the X61 palmrest to try and cool that part of the laptop.

Many people flash a whitelist-removed BIOS and then install a newer, cooler, half size WLAN card.

[madicetea]

Hi. I have to X61 laptops and one of them has a small fan (in addition to the CPU fan assembly) just to the left of the modem. The X61 with the extra fan is a T7300. The one without the extra fan is a T8100.

While the palm rest heat thing is very famous, I wonder if that is the only reason. I also have a second fan on my T9300 board X61 in that same position and trying to unplug it (even after upgrading to Middleton's BIOS and making the WiFi card much smaller), will result in a BIOS panic. It doesn't turn on too often in my case, and I count that as a good thing.

[Jake.Werecat]

This is awesome. Any idea where could I possibly order the 2nd fan for my X61s, as mine unfortunately came without the fan installed.

[RealBlackStuff]

This ONLY applies to X61/X61s with WWAN option.
Check the HMM for the Second fan, (low profile only for X61s).

[axur-delmeria]

This is awesome. Any idea where could I possibly order the 2nd fan for my X61s, as mine unfortunately came without the fan installed.

Models without the 2nd fan do not have the fan header for it, so even if you buy the fan there's nowhere to plug it into.

[Jake.Werecat]

This is awesome. Any idea where could I possibly order the 2nd fan for my X61s, as mine unfortunately came without the fan installed.

Models without the 2nd fan do not have the fan header for it, so even if you buy the fan there's nowhere to plug it into.

Yes, I've just noticed it today when disassembling one of my X61. The fan connector is just not soldered there
Interesting why my X61 had SIM card and 2nd mPCIe slot, but not the fun. The WWAN antenna also wasn't in place. I was hoping to put in the antenna from X60s, but it's different and thus cannot be used.