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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
May 26th, 2011 at 5:26 am
I am trying to get to the fan assembly but the screws are stripped. I have tried a box cutter, mail clippers….Any suggestions?
May 20th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
hey bros, i have a thinkpad. the battery went dead and stopped charging. soon after i could not get the fan to work upon boot. I removed the battery and restarted and was good to go. still running my thinkpad t61 without a battery. fan works fine. solid.
April 24th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Taking out battery and putting it back also helps.
March 30th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
jeman,
Could be bad/broken DC jack but you cannot tell without laptop disassembly.
http://www.insidemylaptop.com/take-apart-hp-pavilion-dv2000-notebook-pc/
It’s necessary to disassemble the laptop and test voltage on terminals where DC jack connected to the motherboard. If there is no voltage going though the DC jack, probably it’s bad jack (I assume your new AC adapter works properly).
If the motherboard gets voltage though the DC jack but has no power light, probably this is motherboard failure.
March 29th, 2011 at 8:03 pm
My Compaq Presario V2000 (S/N: C NF6200KYJ) cannot receive the power, the Power light, HD light, etc, don’t give out light when pressing on the power button, even the fan is not spinning like the notebook is dead. I bought a new multi power adaptor but the problem still persists.
Need you advice on this.
March 3rd, 2011 at 7:28 am
Hi,
I have aT42 with fan error I change the fan but the same message come on the screen.Where are the sensor for the fan power? The fan do not get power.
January 16th, 2011 at 3:24 am
I FIXED IT WITH WD40 !!!
I had the same problem with my 6 year old T41p; “fan-error” at bootup.
I dissasambled the fan like it is described here and sprayed some WD40 in the fan bearing, then blewed some air-pressure in it to clean it and repeated this procedure 2 times.
Put the fan assambly back in my t41p and it worked again like on the first day, without having to purchase a new fan!
January 10th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
Al,
I have an idea. Run your laptop for a while before removing the heatsink. Play some videos to hit up the CPU/GPU and heatsink.
It could be easier to separate the heatsink from GPU when it’s hot.
January 10th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
I have a T43P and the fan started making some noise so rather than wait for the error message I decided to go ahead and replace it. Went ahead and took it apart to get the exact part number and like a few others here I cannot get the fan out becasue it is glued to the graphics chip. I saw one person used a razor to chip away and finally got it out. Any other ideas because there is so much paste/glue you cannot even get a screw driver between the chip and fan to even try to pry it loose. If not guess I’ll try chipping away the paste….
January 3rd, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Nido,
Is it detected in the BIOS?
What the error message says?