Fan replacement: 26R9074 vs. 26R7957

[TuuS]

I don't have one of your model thinkpads to look at, but the T61 I have in front of me has small metal tabs that crimp (bend over) to hold the fan in place. There is also foil tape used on two sides of the fan to hold it in place, as well as some foam, which is only an insolator to keep the case from rattling against it. You can usually reuse enough of the tape and foam to do the job, and a small dab of glue will suffice if necessary to hold the foam in place. 

If the fan is bad already, then you don't have much to lose by dissembling it, even if you break it, and it occures to me that anyone who is able to remove and replace the heatsink, should be well able to swap the fan motor, but if you want a guide or photos, try doing a google search for your model number and the words "fan replace". Your likely to find someone has photos and guides, perhaps many.

[ajkula66 Guru]

I've swapped more fans on T4x units than I'd like to remember, and I always change the entire heatsink...not just the fan.

A few bucks more, granted, but a lot less hassle and much faster...three screws, a pinch of AS5 and you're back in business...

[sge4]

Thanks so much for your responses. I received my new fan and heatsink in the mail and hope to install soon. Just wanted to confirm a few things:

-I need to remove all the screws on the back to replace the fan assembly, not just screws 3 and 4, right? I read conflicting things online. I have a 2005 T43 Type 2668-71U. This article says I need to remove all screws but this video tutorial for a T42 says I need to unscrew only screws 3 and 4 to get to the fan assembly.

-Do I need to "ground" my laptop before I open it up? How do I do that?

-Just remove the battery and unplug from charger. Anything other components to remove?

-Can I have another computer on nearby or will that potentially short circuit my laptop? I was going to refer to the tutorials and the T43 users manual while I did it.

-Heatsink came with dots of thermal grease applied. Is this enough or do I need to get and apply the other thermal grease you were referring to?

[TuuS]

I can't answer specific questions about that model regarding the screws, but it should be obvious if  other screws don't need to be replaced.

As for thermal paste. The cheap paste is usually made with ground ceramic material, it will suffice, but Artic Silver #5 is made with 99.9% silver. It's said to conduct heat better then the cermic kind, but don't mix both, and only use enough to cover the chip, you want as little overspread as possible. If it ends up being to thick, it will have the reverse effect.

Last time I bought some A.S.#5, I got a $25 tube thats enough to do upto 50 laptops, or they have a $10 tube that will do 5-10. (prices might be out of date). They also have a cheaper version that uses alumimum. I've never seen any independant tests, I just tend to go with what most of the experts use.

As for grounding, you want to be grounded yourself, and don't do the work on a carpeted floor or around high levels of static electricity. Touching a good ground before beginning the job is usually enough, but you can get disposable grounding straps to connect to your wrist. Definitely avoid the types of plastic bags that generate static and keep a clean work enviornment and you should be ok.

[andyP Community SuperMod · Accepted solution]

the discrepancy is easy to explain; the system they took apart was a 15" system, it doesn't have a separate palm rest as the 14" system does and therefore the location and number of screws to be removed differ.

I suggest you refer to the Hardware Maintainance Manual for your T43 as it contains the correct information you need.

You don't need to ground your laptop, but you do need to ensure that you, your laptop and the new fan have equal amounts of static. Keep physical contact with your laptop for about 30 seconds before you start opening it. Before you install the new fan keep contact with the laptop first with one hand and touch and keep contact with the fan using your other hand for about 30 seconds. There is more information in the Manual on this under Electrical safety. Even better use an ESD mat. Electrostatic discharge

The AC charger and battery are the first two items which should be disconnected / removed before undergoing any maintainance.

Yes you can have another system nearby, but you should avoid touching it as it doesn't have the same equilibrium of static as the components you are working on. It's probably a good idea to print a few pages of the Hardware Maintainance Manual out beforehand and lay them on the table / workbench should you need to refer to them.

What comes on the heatsink is fully adequate, you do not need to add any extra, but ensure you clean any old remnants from the CPU before installing the new fan, best done using a microfibre cloth.

[sge4]

I'm typing this message on my now beautifully quiet T43. The fan installation went great. Only glitches were:

1) I didn't know what screwdrivers to use (especially for the fan screws). The manual didn't seem to list what screwdrivers I needed, so I relied on a bit of trial and error, which can be dangerous for stripping screws. Did I miss that?

2) The foam lining the old heatsink was melted so I had to give the old fan a bit of a yank to get it out (but this required triple checking that I had removed all the screws for fear that it was still attached somehow).

3) The foam around the new heatsink was a bit bushy and I couldn't get the fan screws to catch. I had to basically force down the new heatsink until the fan screws caught.

Thank you all so much for your help. As you can probably tell that was my first time opening up a computer or doing anything technical. You guys are awesome and I'm glad there's a community out there of such helpful Thinkpad users.

Apple delenda est!

[sge4]

Now looking at my original fan (from when I got laptop in Dec. 2005), I see 26R9066 (horizontal line) FRU Fan Long M24 26R9074.

[sge4]

I replaced my fan with a bunch of your guys' help about 6 months ago (thank you). For a while it was working well, and now it revs for stretches (even when idling) and my palm rest seems hotter than before, especially on the right side. The fan buzzes a bit as if something's caught, and really buzzes if I pick it up and turn it to the left (such as to look underneath).

In addition, my laptop is really slow -- switching between programs, opening documents, loading video, etc. I know it's an old machine but think these problems are related.

Do you think I should replace the fan again or can something else be done? Thanks.

System: 2005 T43 2668-71U, 1 GB RAM, over 20% of my HD is free, Virtual Memory set to "System managed size" (current allocation of RAM -- 1533 MB -- is recommended).

[andyP Community SuperMod]

You may just need to give the fan a blast of compressed air, why not whip the keyboard off and take a look?  If you do decide to give it a blast of compressed air don't forget to block the fan from spinning, pulling the connecter from the mainboard when doing this can't hurt either.

That said, with your comments about the right side of the palm rest getting warm, which is no where near the fan, combined with your comments on the system being slow I'd be concerned about the hard drive because it sits under the right side of the palm rest.  A symptom of a possible hard drive failure is that it gets warmer and slower add to that that heat is a hard drive killer.

I suggest downloading and creating a bootable cd of Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test, even if you don't have an Hitachi drive it will tell you if it's failing.

[sge4]

Thanks very much for the suggestions. I couldn't download Hitachi's bootable CD test for some reason but I did run three SeaTools tests and passed all of them. I also ran HDD health and Crystal Disk Info without problems a couple months ago. I removed the keyboard and cleaned the fan as you said. One thing is when I shook out the laptop a little piece of metal about 1 cm long bent a bit like a staple came out, I believe exiting through the fan grille on the left side...

Unfortunately, all the problems persist. Any other ideas? The only other thing I could think to do is install more RAM, maxed out to 2 GB just to speed things up.

Also, I'm running Firefox 3.6.28 because version 12 made everything even slower.