R61i fan issues

[mortonofski]

Hello all,

Over the past six weeks, I've been having considerable problems with my R61i's fan. It blew out in mid-October - the laptop was more than 3 1/2 years old at that point, and in researching the problem I found that the R61's fan tends to die around the three-year mark. I ordered a replacement, and received and installed it on Hallowe'en. The new fan worked fine up until two days ago when I encountered the exact same problem I'd had with the original - 'Fan Error' on boot, resultant auto-shutdown, a very faint burning smell, and no fan noises. Before I take it in to get it looked at, might anyone here have had similar issues with their Thinkpads, or any thoughts as to what underlying problems might cause multiple fan blow-outs? I'm keeping in mind the fact that I may well have just got a bad fan, and a second replacement fan might end up working well, but on the chance it's not that I'd prefer not to waste money on a fan that's going to blow out in short order.

Possibly helpful information: model number is 7650-8CU, modified with 3GB RAM, an Intel 4965AGN card, and a 160GB hard drive; survived a fall about a year and a half ago, was repaired under warranty and worked well for more than a year after it was returned.

Thanks,
Andrew

[muraii]

Hi, Andrew,

I've come here specifically because I have a ThinkPad R61i with a fan error. Serendipitously, the day before I hit this error I created the first backup since March or April of this year. Certainly, I haven't lost any data; but it's better peace-of-mind anyway.

I bought a replacement fan, but unfortunately it did not come with the heatsink. I didn't pay close-enough attention to the eBay listing. I found last night that I can disassemble everything except the fan/heatsink unit; the three screws holding these parts together are smaller than any screwdriver I have. Did you run into this, too, or did your replacement come with the heatsink?

As to your general question (please excuse the hijacking), my machine is about 3-3.5 years old, too. I've noticed in the last few weeks/couple of months that the fan runs quite a bit, even if the machine is mostly idle. I'm not sure if this is erroneous, but I shouldn't feel concerned to leave my machine on with the lid closed. I don't do this, though, because I'm worried about heat warping the screen.

Hope that helps in some way. As soon as I can get my fan installed, I'll see how it works out and update this thread. I'm unlikely to do that before next week, much to my chagrin.

Cheers,

Daniel

[makaveli559m]

I replaced mine a few weeks ago, everything works great just becareful what you do and everything should be fine

[LGJ]

How do you delete your own posting? I see how to modify it, but not delete it.