Fan problem =[

I have a year old Acer Aspire 5551G and in the last couple of days the fan has been driving me mental! As soon as I start up, the fan starts spinning on max speed even though there are no programs open and the laptop is cold. I have tries using speedfan but it didn't do anything. This is really annoying and I'm hoping it isn't a real bad problem because the warranty has just expired. Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

It sounds like your heatsink / CPU / GPU aren't making good contact. If it's out of warranty look up some info on how to reapply the thermal paste yourself, or take it to a trusted shop to do it for you.

 

Thanks a lot. Until I can afford to take it to someone....is using the computer in it's current state going to damage it?

 

Download HWMonitor and see what temps you're getting. The AMD chips in the 5551G are designed to run at < 70C if I remember correctly, so as long as they're not going over 70C you're ok.

 

I ended up calling a guy about this problem and he said to blow a hair drier into it to try to move some dust but he said to do it on a cool temp and the hairdrier I had access to only went on hot or extremely hot. So we used compressed air instead and it didn't do a damn thang. But 2 days later, the fan went back to normal! so it must have dislodged some dust. But since then, the fan hasn't kicked into high gear at ANY point and I'm wondering if there might be some damage to it either because it was running so much for weeks or because of the compressed air. When it gets too hot, instead of having the fan kick in, the laptop just shuts down completely. I can hear the fan humming quietly though as if it's still moving

thanks in advance