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.)

[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.

[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