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Let’s say you have an IBM ThinkPad laptop and when you turn it on all you get is a black screen with “Fan error” message. What could be wrong?
A few weeks ago, the fan in my trusty IBM T42 bought the farm. This resulted in the unit heating up considerably, as well as numerous “fan error” messages on bootup. It eventually became so bad that to boot up at all, I had to blow compressed air into the fan’s exhaust grill for 5-10 seconds, in order to fool the BIOS and make it believe the fan was actually spinning.
According to the IBM hardware maintenance guide (HMM) for ThinkPad T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p this error message indicates a problem with the fan, you can find symptom-to-FRU index on the page58.
The symptom-to-FRU index in this section lists symptoms and errors and their possible causes.
Apparently it’s time to replace the fan assembly. The cooling fan comes together with the heat sink, that’s why you’ll have to replace the whole fan assembly.
You can easily replace the fan assembly after you remove the palm rest and keyboard.
1. Remove the battery and unplug the AC adapter.
2. Remove four screws marked with yellow circles. These screws securing the keyboard.
3. Remove eight screws marked with orange circles. These screws securing the palm rest.
4. Lift up the keyboard and upnlug the keyboard cable from the motherboard.
5. Lift up the palm rest and unplug the touchpad cable from the motherboard.
6. Remove three screws securing the fan assembly, unplug the fan cable from the motherboard. Lift up and replace the fan assembly.
You’ll find step-by-step laptop disassembly and fan replacement instructions in the HMM in the chapter “Removing and replacing a FRU” on the page 70.
You can find a new fan assembly using the FRU number located on your failed fan, it might look like 91P8393, 26R7860, 13R2919, 13N5442, or 13R2657. Just google the FRU number and find a place to buy it from. Different laptop types with different screen sizes use different fans, so you have to find the correct one witch fits your model. If for some reason your fan assembly doesn’t have the FRU number, you’ll have to refer to the HMM page 216-217. On these pages you’ll find witch fan belongs to your laptop. Here you can find new and used fans for ThinkPad laptops.
For example, if have a type 2378-FVU laptop with 15.0″ LCD screen, then you need a fan assembly with FRU: 13R2657
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:46 pm
yambe,
Did you check the AC adapter? Does it output correct voltage?
It’s possible the adapter is dead and battery has no charge.
January 2nd, 2011 at 5:20 am
hello i have a ibm thinkpad laptop, when i press the power button, it shows no sign at all, no power or hd sign,
anyone has any help
January 2nd, 2011 at 1:18 am
i have ibm T43 laptop and i change the hard drive
i face the problem an error message come on startup hardrive not detected
i need the framework to update
please guide me
December 9th, 2010 at 8:39 am
Thanks for the solution, blowing air through the vents. It really worked in a crisis situation. Thanks alot!
November 26th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
sandra,
I don’t think that cleaning the fan related to the LAN port failure. Probably just a coincidence.
Have you tried a different Ethernet cable. Your cable could be bad.
November 26th, 2010 at 4:05 am
hello everybody,
i had an “fan error” in my IBM thinkpad z60m. so i cleaned it and now it is working fine. but now by ethernet port does not work anymore. none of the two LEDs are blinking – it s kind of dead. all drivers are okay and windows tells me that the Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet device is okay and ready to use.
has anybody an idea what has happened?
November 2nd, 2010 at 10:22 pm
“Fan Error” means the fan is not spinning up. Sometimes the problem can be a sticky fan or sticky grease in the fan, and rarely you’ll get lucky and the fan will un-stick and start working again.
More likely, however, is that the fan is burned out and is not working any more. You need a new fan. It’s a 60-minute repair job, using the thinkpad manual from the IBM website.
The motherboard has a sensor that detects how much power the fan is drawing. If you blow on the fan at startup, you might fool the sensor but when you stop blowing, the fan will stop turning and your CPU will overheat.
It’s extremely cheap to put a thermistor on a CPU made in VLSI, and I’m virtually certain that the Pentiums on Thinkpad laptops have a CPU overheating sensor, and that’s why your laptop might shut down a short time later after it has booted up. Your fan is not working and so the CPU shuts down.
When you replace the fan, you need to add thermal paste so there is good conductivity between the fan and the CPU. The fan is not just a fan, but also a liquid-cooled set of pipes from the CPU to the fins that the fan cools. If the heat doesn’t get to the liquid pipes (via thermal paste), no amount of fan blowing will help !! You can get 2 syringes of thermal paste from Hong Kong for about $2.00 on ebay (shipped) if you shop around. Or you can use zinc oxide (sunblock), white silicone grease, or even toothpaste – all 3 are nearly as effective as each other.
http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm
So, if you replaced your fan and the CPU starts up and shuts a short time later, chances are good that you didn’t properly connect the fan to the CPU (or the graphics engine) via thermal paste. you will need to disassemble, reapply thermal paste, and reassemble the laptop.
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My problem is that I replaced my T42 fan, and now 3 months later the brand-new fan is not working again. I am desperately hoping I got a bad fan, because the alternative (something inside the laptop is killing the fan) will murder my laptop. Anyone have any ideas ??
September 22nd, 2010 at 6:49 pm
hello can you please help me i have a ibm t43 when i open it up it shows fan error and it shutdown,
when i check the fan and open it again the fan spins and it stop.and then the fan error words shows my loptop shutdown again..i wonder if the fan was the problem or it on the motherboard..
btw sorry im still not good in english..^_^ please help me..i miss my ibmt43….thank you.
August 29th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Instead of purchasing from IBM Canada at $60 CDN, I bought one on eBay from babypi521 at half the price $32 USD and free shipping and it arrived in just over a week. I didn’t need to apply much force to get it loose from the CPU and the superb manual is useful to even the beginner DIY.
August 20th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
I HAVE AN IBMTHINKPAD LAPTOP .OF LATE WHEN I SWITCH IT ON ,IT CANT EVEN STAND ON FOR A MINUTE .I LEARNT THAT ITS FROM THE PROCESSOR. I WANNA KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE AND IF SO WHAT SHOULD I DO.