"Vibrating" noise from fan, T43

[Norway Pad]

I have a quick question regarding the T43. Some days ago, I noticed a "vibrating" noise from the T43. It almost sounds like the noise some CD-R's make when they spin in the CD drive. But I had no CD in there, and I soon noticed the noise comes from the fan side of the laptop. I will do closer inspections and try to change the speed of the fan to hear for sure, but I guess these are symptoms of a fan reaching the end of it's life.

-Can the fan/fan units still be bought new from Lenovo, and what's the price?

-How long is it advisable to let the fan run like this? Do they work and simply make more and more noise, or can they suddenly seize when they are in this state?

I will not touch this quite yet, unless the noise becomes much worse or I suspect the cooling capacity isn't like it should. I have a plan of servicing the T43 (reinstalling the OS, and cleaning the cooling assembly and renewing thermal paste) when I buy a T60 later this year, so hopefully the fan will last til then.

Thank you for any answer!

[FTC]

Hi,

It could be the fan dying but it could also be just that the fan has accelerated from previous 'normal' speed due to dust clogging in the heatsink, and trying to compensate when detecting the temperature increase.
This is why I'd suggest first of all to verify the fan speed and/or blow out the dust that may be in the heatsink. Just remove the keyboard (4 screws) and blow into the heatsink from the outside/make sure there is no dust obstructing airflow.

[Norway Pad]

Well, the noise seem to have disappeared.. But thanks for the answer. When I look at what happened, I see that you are in fact right.

I turned the laptop off, inserted a piece of wire to prevent the fan from spinning, and gave it some blows of compressed air. After I booted up again, there were no noise. The fan seems to run at the same speed, but no noise, like it was before. So I will listen carefully the next days to see if it comes back.

However, if any of you guys have bought a T43 fan lately, I would still be interested in knowing the price, and also through which "channel" you contact Lenovo to buy these parts. I am still set for doing my little T43 service project sometime during this year.

EDIT: After some research and navigating back and forth through different links, I finally found the spare parts list and later how to order the parts.. $71 for the long fan, in case someone was wondering.

[Norway Pad]

After running some CPU demanding applications, and leaving the laptop on overnight, a slight noise is now back. So the fan has a problem. But unless it get a lot worse, I will let it run for a while still.