T41 and new fan issue, is there a solution?

[nikemen]

So, now I seem to be hearing the fan issue that people were once talking about. I mean, I know it comes on, but now when it comes on, when on AC and also battery, it doesn't seem to be consistent.

The FAN will run, and every five seconds or so, it seems to cycle to high speed and then back down. WhewwwWWWWWwwwwwww. WheewwwWWWWWWwwwwww.

Is this the infamous sound? What was the resolution, will IBM fix it, or is this a user repair to swap with the T41p FAN?

I wish there was a way to just turn it off, I cannot imagine that the device is running hot.

[Conmee]

Well... the older folks around here or people who live in server rooms and are used to A/C and fan noise will tell you they've never run into this problem... lol Fact is, just about every T40/T40p/T41 I've got my hands on has made the noise, so I'm either real lucky/unlucky or it just doesn't seem to bother/affect some folks. And I'm talking about having worked with about 12 T Series machines, 10 of which made the noise. Go figure. And this has come up for people in Asia, Europe, and America.

Now to your question... I ordered the T41p Long Fan and installed it in both a T40p and T41, and for me, at least, that cured the problem. Some other folks have had success doing this, and at least one person I remember said it didn't fix it for him. I believe they changed the Long Fan part number... it's now FRU# 13N5442... this is NOT the same as the Long Fan for M10 which doesn't have the piece of sticky plastic that must be removed prior to installation. At least, for me, I used the Long Fan that had the sticky plastic where the heatsink and ATI graphics chips touched.

Based on the pictures in the HMM and taking a look at the Mobility Radeon 9600 in my T42, there is a new heat spreader that covers the ATI chip, so the "new" Long Fan probably takes that into account. So if you try to use the new Long Fan (for M10 is how it's labeled in the HMM), it probably won't sit flush on the ATI chips that don't have the heat spreader (i.e. T40/T41). So my advice, is if you are going to try this, get the fan part number I've listed above.

Hope this helps.

Daniel.

[akerman]

I think you are experiencing, what is referred to as "the fan throb". It's found on a lot of t40/p and t41 machines. It's not fixable under warranty, as IBM doesn't acknowledge the problem - you can fix it yourself by installing the t41p fan, but that will void the warranty, so you'd have to swap fans each time you send it in to IBM.

[nikemen]

Any tips on best place to order?
Maybe we could do a group order

[Conmee]

The fan is going for $32.50 on the IBM site... check here...

http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/store ... logId=-840

and enter in the part number above...

Daniel

[risolutore]

wht about panasonic fanless notebook???

[cynic]

wht about panasonic fanless notebook???

What about it? We like thinkpads around here

Seriously, though, the X40 ULV 1.0Ghz is supposedly fanless.

[kctopitz]

has anyone had any luck installing the mentioned FRU# 13N5442 long fan into a T41 or other T4x series? My T41 is afflicted and the longer I have it, the more bothersome it becomes, especially working late at night when it's quiet.

I am considering calling IBM support and insisting that this is an unacceptable problem. I could do the fix myself, but if it's a known problem why should I (or any of us) risk losing warranty status?

[eriqesque]

has anyone had any luck installing the mentioned FRU# 13N5442 long fan into a T41 or other T4x series? My T41 is afflicted and the longer I have it, the more bothersome it becomes, especially working late at night when it's quiet.

I am considering calling IBM support and insisting that this is an unacceptable problem. I could do the fix myself, but if it's a known problem why should I (or any of us) risk losing warranty status?

While it is a known problem IBM does not recognize it as one.
I did however have the fan swapped out. I live very close to a service center and took my T40 there with the new fan and had them do it. But since then I have opend it up and applied AS5 to the CPU anyway, so I ended up voiding my waranty anywy (if they find out), if I need to send the unit in I will simply swap back the old Fan and no one should be the wiser. USE GLOVES.
The T41p fan is much more efficient, it runs less and when it does it's very quiet and I hear no cycling noise.

It is a very simple thing to change get a hold of the HMM and if you have every done any type of repair on desktops or notebooks you will have no problems. That being said this was the 1st time I had ever opened up a notebook ad I found it very simple to do.