I've had my wonderful T41p since fall 2004, and I am very happy with it. When I got it, it was TOTALLY quiet. I mean, when running on batteries the unit didn't even whisper! The CPU would be off, and the 7K60 hitachi HDD would be spinning so quiet, that I would have to put my ear to the palmrest to remotely hear it.
The CPU fan hardly runs at all. At least, when im running on batteries - which is nice, and why I am wondering that so many TXX users have all these problems with fan-noise.
BUT, my harddrive is quite loud. By loud, I don't mean that it can be hear three metres away. But it has a constant low-pitch sound, like a fan spinning. And it's NOT the fan, i've checked. Maybe I'm just being quirky, but it's very annoing that the drive is (by far) the noisiest thing there, and it really gets to me when working on an otherwise silent machine.
Could the bearing (fluid?) be wearing out, or is this normal? Can the drive be cleaned or serviced?





