I had a very loud fan and took it apart and found out it was shaking alot, my laptop would even shake. I was told id have to replace my entire thermal assembly for more than $200 and after looking through some useless videos, this one actually helped and fixed my problem for very cheap. So, great vid and very cheap and easy solution.
Long live RU-vid and awesome users like Abraham Levit who post such useful and highly informative videos.. A repair job like that can easily cost someone a minimum $100 or more. That's the power of community sharing and I love it.
I'm too cheap to buy lubricant just for a fan so I used the oil that came with my electric shaver. It's meant to handle a lot of friction after all. Hopefully it lasts long. This video was so helpful thank you so much.
@@shade1747 don't remember honestly but after that when the fan started making noise again I used cooking oil lol (less than a drop!) And it lasted waaaaay longer. I gave away that laptop because I bought a new one but it seems cooking oil works even better than the other one.
This was extremely helpful. I am not a technical person but managed fixing my laptop by watching videos, and this was was the most important. Thanks a lot.
So helpful! My 14 year old son helped me do this after watching a video on how to get our hp envy laptop open. We could not believe how quiet it ran after cleaning and lubricating! It may only be temporary, but I don't care! I'll replace the fan later if I need to, but in the meantime, I'm no longer stressed out by that obnoxious noise! Thank you so much!
You just saved me heartache and pain of buying another new fan. This fan I have is new, and the lubricrant I used was NOT from the manufacturer. Thanks so much!
For those people looking for an oil they can use but don't have any then you can use, wd40 (obviously) if not then do you have an electronic shaver? They always come with a small tube for lubricating the blades. That is top quality too use, baby oil also does the trick. Last resort option is Vaseline, just a small bit and spread it as thin as possible all over leaving no clumps or thick bits. It works but that's only if you can't find anything else. Whatever you do please don't use cooking oil, I see someone in the comments suggesting its usage but that is a 100% nope. Good luck and good day 😇
I just wanted to stop by and say THANK YOU. I actually have a Toshiba laptop and kept getting this ridiculous error about the fan not working and it would shut down instantly. It was the most annoying thing in the world. So I followed your directions and it worked perfectly even with the Toshiba. Computer is like new again! Thank you!
Use 'Tri-Flow'. I, use it all the time and lasts a long time. Thank you for warning everyone NOT to use WD40 which actual is a water displacement lubricant and gums up after a while. When I had a boat in Florida, we used SRC spray to prevent corrosion from the salt water.
This is the first time a youtube fixing tutorial has actually worked for something. Thank you man, my fan was producing weird sounds, like it was scratching to something. The ironic thing about that, is that it started to be louder when I cleaned the dust on it. Now it works perfectly. Legend!
The tip about how the fans should spin helped me a lot when I noticed the fan would rotate a couple times but stop quickly. There was a small crumb stuck inside the fan causing it to not spin properly and my laptop to overheat. Thanks for the video!
Literally saved my laptop. He can was making loud noises and it made the performance bad. Did everything you said and it worked!! Fan runs silent now. Glad I found the vid before I bought a new fan, no other website told me to do these steps. Thanks!
thanks for taking time to make this video, my laptop was unusable for weeks due to fan issue and no one offer a fix for it. watched this video did as described and laptop works again .. BIG THANKS!!!
Thank you for your time to make this video. I needed my computer and no one had a cooling fan I stock. I found your video and low and behold it is fixed. My daughter is happy to. She needs to play her games.
Just want to express my gratitude as this your video saved of money and stress . I had resorted to ordering my fan on aliexpress and it would have taken two months with a free shipping or a shipping cost of over 6 times the cost of the fan. This just saved my life to say the least. So Thank you very much
Just followed your steps and the fan is working as good as new. My replacement fan is currently unavailable for order, so your tip should keep my laptop up and running until I can order and install the replacement fans. Thanks again!
worked like a champ on my Lenovo X61! followed your instructions, used 3 in 1 oil on a tissue on the shaft. reassembled, and powered on, fan error gone
So i got this laptop in the garbage, (yes...I know. but it was just sitting there.) no HDD and the CPU fan I guess was the issue. I replaced the HDD but I didnt know what to do with the fan. Thanks to you I managed to hear something from this laptop I havent heard yet...A SPINNING FAN! Thank you!
Sorry to be off topic but does anybody know of a trick to log back into an Instagram account? I stupidly lost my password. I would appreciate any assistance you can offer me.
Computer fans use sleeve bearings, which is bare-metal contact between an extremely strong metal with one that wears very evenly and precisely, like bronze. The best lubricant for this type of application is one that contains a soft, powdery metal that works itself into the pores of the bronze, continually replenishing itself as the shaft rotates. Overhead bathroom fans have a similar type of bearing; these have an oiling port in each of the two bearing cases, and the bearings are held in place by pressure (from the clips) and a fiberglass wick of sorts is used to contain and distribute the oil into the central bronze piece. I couldn't easily tell what was on the paper towel, but it looked dark and brownish-gray in color, and it's definitely grease. Oil won't last because that small a bearing has no wick to contain it. To hazard a guess, I'd say it's a grease with graphite or molybdenum.
good tip! i usually take thigs apart when they're broken, but haven't tried taking my laptop's fan apart to inspect and try fixing it. will definitely inspect mine and see if this is the problem while i put the new one in. thanks for sharing!
This video helped me a lot. İ had a realy annoying fan sound. Cleaned and lubricated the fan shaft with wd40. Now it is working without any problems. Thanks sir!
Not all shafts just pop off! Some stay stuck in the hole and the fan snaps off.... Beware. Now I'm off to get a completely new heat-sink/fan as mine are one piece... wish me luck!
Thank you for putting this up. it helped me out. Too bad there are many people out there that are so negative they will do anything to put people down, They probably never did anything good for anyone in their lives. So thank you for taking the time and putting in the effort to make the vid in the first place. The world needs more people to share their knowledge. - Forget about people that say you're crazy to try, find those that say your crazy not to!!
This is the video I been looking for hours, great explanation, the fan you use as example is the same as a1181 please update the video tags! Great work
Very helpful video, thank you. I now know why my fans only remain quiet for about one month after I clean and lubricate them. I'll see if I can find a couple of fans for my 2007 Macbook Pro. If I can't it's easy enough to clean the fans every month, just kind of a hassle.
Work your shaft...lol You could have pried off the sticker on the opposite side of the stator to be sure there are no accumulating old lubricant in there and that slot on the spindle (aka the impeller shaft) is intended for a locking clip that will prevent the impeller from getting too misaligned to make the stator interact with the magnet ring on the impeller itself, and could have caused the wobble that made those marks! I had some good luck with using SKF LGWA2 as lubricant (since it was the lubricant available around that was also used on machinery), though other high quality lubricants can be used, carbon-infused lubricant is not recommended because of electrical conductivity, oils can be good as well (though can just dry up) but just make sure it is not the cheap stuff Another thing that I once did to a VAIO that my team had over in Japan was to actually shim the fan. This took out most of the slack that you can feel with pushing and pulling against the impeller, that prolongs your sleeve bearing and makes the motor work better as the magnet and the stator coils are far more accurately centered, and if your sleeve bearing is very worn (like my newly acquired VGN-SZ18GP-C) that you can see the fan wobble as it runs, this can help you to squeeze a bit more life into it (because instead of wobbling so much, you took out most of the slack so it will wobble far less), using grease would also help with it
Did this exactly on a Macbook Pro 2011 17" dual fans; worked great! I had serious noise and reduced RPMs to less than half max. I used silicone lubricant after cleaning out with alcohol and it was like new. The Sunon stock Apple fans though take quite a bit of force to get off the rotor, best to do it hard and fast to prevent bending chassis or other damage.
Man you're a life saver! I did the same way you said with my Acer Nitro 5, and now it works like charm. Thank you for making this video which literally saved me a fortune of money, cuz I'm jobless right now😅 P.s. I used coconut oil as lubricant LOL
Thanks man. I had the problem of fan making grrr noise very loud. I though it was because of the fan walls and the fan blade hitting or some unbalance nd all...but then I saw him putting lube. Then I tried oild and it works well now silently. I thought that bldc fan doesn't need any lube. Thanks. Helped a lot. Means a lot
Thank you so much! My problem was solved with this. I've been through so much trouble and that awful noise because of the fan. I bought an HP Envy outside of my country and I can't find its parts here, so it should take sometime to get my new fan, but it will help me meanwhile :)
You really helped me, along with the people that rec'd WD-40 as lubricant for the fan. At first I did not use enough but now it is so quiet I can barely tell it is on, where before it woke up the baby whenever I turned it on. Thank you!!! For some reason my wireless manually shut itself off during the whole operation and I had to restore that in Safe mode but other than that no problems.
For long-lasting lubrification, use lithium grease (good for bronze bushing. Use light synthetic oil for ball bearing) you can also use light oil for bushing. 5/W30 synthetic motor oil work well. Be careful, if you use compressed air for cleaning. High-speed rotation of the fan will generate voltage that can be harmful to the electronic circuitry of your fan and computer. Disconnect the fan from the motherboard or lock the rotor (fan blade part) with a toothpick before blowing compressed air to be absolutely sure that you don't break anything.
i use wd40 for lubricating the internals. it lasts for a very long amount of time and is efficient. but you need to be careful when injecting. what i do is put some wd40 in a clean container and take a syringe to drop some drops around the coil and magnet and some in the centre. does the job and i am using the fan for 3 years now and no issues yet.
My laptop's been doing this for months now, screeching and heating up.. But today it finally turned off and showed systems failing, but I got it working, although I'll try this out.
HP laptop started complaining after 2 years. Dell laptop works as good as the day I got it, twelve years later. Would be interesting seeing if there's data on whether some companies are known for using sub standard parts or not (Like Apple did on faulty batteries years ago, which triggered a recall)
I got an idea. how about using a full ceramic bearing within the rotor? It should work like "forever" and provide loads more rotation for same electricity input
I wrestled with mine (late 2008 MBP with two fans) for a while, trying to find a lube that would return them to quiet operation, I tried a variety of thin oils, which all eventually would start to rattle and whine like the first failure. I was about to give up and get new fans when I found the right stuff: Krytox GPL 205 synthetic grease from Dupont. Expensive, but it will probably pay for itself eventually. There are a few different types, but a small dab of this stuff on the fan axle, after first cleaning the old lube out with Radio Shack electronics cleaner has seemed to do the trick. For now at least! If it lasts several months between lubes, I figure it's worth it until I get a new macbook. I'm hoping I can get 10 years out of this puppy (upgraded to SSD and 8GB ram- still runs pretty damn good)
thank you so much m8 for helpin me out, my fan was vibrating and overhaeting the system, i ordered a new one but it is stuck in the states due to covid-19. =)
How do I take the fan out though? This is a really nice step by step video, but I don't know how to get there. Unscrewing the fan is easy enough, but it's connected to the motherboard with electric wires that I don't know how to disconnect and reconnect.
have you tried sewing machine oil? Or heavy precision lubricant with PTFE? I've seen sewing machine oil recommended in a lot of places, but I suspect that the PTFE would be even better. Fluoropolymers are amazing lubricants in all applications.
I think, the problem with the lubricant that you used and it just lasting one month, may be because it is a gel. At least it looks like one. Gel is mostly water based and as such will evaporate.
I think the reason why any lubricant doesn't last long in your fans is because these particular bearings (probably made out of porous bronze) require to be oil impregnated to function properly. And while it's not possible to do the following procedure with fans, it can generally be done by heating up the oil, dropping the bearing into it, and after 15 minutes dropping the bearing into cold oil to cool down.
I use bearing grease, yeah those thick gooey thing? They work best for me, never dries out or being pulled all over because it's that thick. And my laptop is from 2008 and I opened the fan like in 2015 and blob it in the fan shaft... it vibrates from time to time. But the fan has yet to fail hope this helps :D And I know im 6 years too late.