ThinkPad T20 fan stops at during the boot

[ophiothrix]

Hello.

I would like first to thank you guys for all your help!

A bit of history. I bought my T20 second hand some 5 years ago. Since then I had to replace motherboard after the powerpack was allegedly supplying too much current and burnt the old one. At the same time I replaced the fan as the thermal rubber was cracked. I replaced it with T21 model without the rubber. It worked for a few years afterwards, although I used it very irregularly. A few months ago I upgraded memory to 512Mb and was finally able to install Linux Mint. I managed to use it for some time without major problems, although it would occasionally freeze. About a month ago I tried to install another Linux distribution (ZevenOS). On some lucky occasions it would load live CD and start installation, but it never made it to the end. Besides, most of the times it would freeze during live CD loading, and every time at different stage.

Now to the actual problem. After some troubleshooting, I've noticed that the CPU fan would stop working as soon as OS starts booting. It seems to work fine during the POST and when I enter BIOS setup, but as soon as GRUB or Live CD starts loading, it stops. Despite that it still loads Linux Mint just fine every time, but it would freeze sooner or later, I expect due to the overheating. The funny thing is that as soon as it freezes, the fan starts working again!

I replaced the fan again, with the proper T20 model, but not to avail. I am thinking about upgrading BIOS, since it's still got 1999 version, but other than that and replacing motherboard, I'm out of ideas.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

All the best.

[Harryc]

It's normal for the fan to stop/start so you really need to take a look at CPU temperature. If you only run Linux install gkrellm and enable the temperature sensors. Post the results here.

[ophiothrix]

Thanks for the suggestion. Will try. The problem is, it stops, but never starts again until it crashes...

[RealBlackStuff]

Take the fan off and apply fresh thermal paste. Either the old stuff is gone, or was not applied at all.
You probably have a CPU overheating problem.

[ophiothrix]

Thanks for the idea, but I'm afraid it's not that. The paste was applied and I've just put a whole new fan in last night with some fresh paste (it probably didn't need any as the fan got thermal rubber, but I didn't now how to clean the old paste without risking to damage the CPU). Anyway, the problem persists and it looks like the problem is in the fan not working at all rather than working inefficiently. I have a feeling it might be something to do with a controller of some sort.

[RealBlackStuff]

Look around for the fan of a T22, P/N 26P9317
These are different in looks from the T20/T21 models, and more powerful.

[ophiothrix]

Thanks again for the suggestions. I tried to run gkrellm, but it failed to detect any temperature sensors. The same happened, when I tried to enable temperature sensor in standard System Monitor. Out of despair I tried to install XP in a free partition and the fan seems to work properly. So I assume it's somehow OS-related. I will try out some other Linux distros and (reluctantly) non-Debian-based ones, in case it's something to do with hardware detection and functionality.

Regards!