Laptop Fans

[lollardfish]

One of the fans on the back of my laptop has stopped. Anyone know anyone who might be able to repair/replace it locally? How serious is it? Dell will charge me immense amounts of money to fix it.

Comments

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

When the AC adapter plug on my Mac laptop got bumped I had to replace the sound card that it is attached to. The quote I got to repair it was close to $500. I was able to order the card online for $75. and I found a website that gave me step-by-step directions to replace it. It took about 30 minutes and would have taken only 20 if I had done it before. You might be able to find something similar for a Dell.
Makes me think I should have become a computer tech for the $800/hour.

[galacticvoyeur.livejournal.com]

How old is your laptop? This has a lot to do with how much you want to be spending on it. And it could be more than just the fan. There is a thermal circuit that activates the fan that could be the real problem.

I'm enrolled in a Mac tech class right now, not that sheds much light on Dells. How good are you with tools and keeping track of little itty bitty screws?

I also suggest that you immediately backup your files. You may be due for a catastrophic failure right about now...

(If it was my laptop, I'd back it up, take it apart, and try to fix it myself. If I failed, I'd toss it and get a new one. Spending $500 bucks to fix a used computer is wrong. You'd still have a used computer.)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I've backed up everything. It's heading on towards 3 and a half years old, but I'm not willing to replace it right now. But I've backed up everything.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Note: I won't be spending tons of money to fix it. I'd be happy to spend a little money to fix it.

[galacticvoyeur.livejournal.com]

I wish I had a good repair place to direct you to. You should do all right as long as you don't fall into the clutches of some morons like the ones at FirstTech (a Mac place on Hennepin who've screwed up everyone I've talked to over the years.) If someone seems to be giving you a song&dance, call me.

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

They're the ones who gave me the $500 quote to replace my powerbook sound card before I found directions on how to do it myself. Heard about any other problems about them? I just came into some inheritence and was looking at upgrading my Macs. Last time I was out that way it loooked like Macmania was closed.

[galacticvoyeur.livejournal.com]

Do not give FirstTech money for anything. Especially macs, repairs, or training. You can, however, go in their showroom and look at new Macs. Just don't eat the food or touch the cold iron.

Macmania is gone. I don't think Midwest Mac Parts does repairs, but they're a great source of parts for stuff that's 3 or 4 years old or more.

Check out the mac dept. at Micro Center in St. Louis Park. Once you find the one mac-knowledgeable employee, who tends to get into conversations and digresses a lot, you can learn some stuff.

What kind of upgrading are you thinking of? Most upgrades you can do yourself. Seriously.

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

Oop I shouldn't have said "upgrading," I meant replacing with newer models. I've got one of the early generation Imacs, and a G3 powerbook (Wallstreet edition). I've alway bought used in the past and I'm looking forward to something new out of the box for the first time. It's probably more than I need but have you seen any reviews of the new Intel powered macs?

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Why are you people having a MAC conversation on my blog?!!?!?!?!

Damnitall you people.

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

It's a subtle attempt to lure you away from the dark side, and get you to take in stray cats ;-)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I tried to buy a MAC. It was going to cost me 1200$ more for a comparable system with a comparable warranty. I was willing to spend a bit more, but not that much. And it's not like MACs don't break too, they are just prettier, less virus prone, and you have to wait longer for games to come out on them.

[galacticvoyeur.livejournal.com]

I always check macintouch.com first.

I'd also wait a bit until they've got the bugs out.

You'll also eventually have to upgrade your 3rd party software.

Oops, I'm doing it again! Sorry, David!

[bethlet.livejournal.com]

Fan problems can lead to bigger problems. One of the fans went on my Dell last year and it meant that the processor started overheating, causing the whole system to randomly shut down because it was too hot. By the time a tech came out (I did buy the 3 year onsite service agreement because it's a work laptop), he basically had to pry the chip off the heat sync. It had fused. It almost destroyed my processor.

How serious is it? It could be really serious. But then, if you don't tax your computer too much, it could be less serious.

[jadiana.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know how computer savy you are. I've never worked on laptops, so it's all greek to me. However, replacing a fan in a PC is very easy.

Here's a guide to replacing a fan in a DELL Inspiron 2500 Systems laptop, look it over and see if it looks like something you could do. Yours might be similar.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins2500/en/sm_en/remove.htm#1051903

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I can do that (I have a Dell Latitude 840 or something)