More on M5N fan...

OK, I've got on the M5Ns with the dodgy fan problem. It's always been really noisy, but it got unbearable a while ago, and I had fan and heatsink replaced under warranty. But they only replaced it with another identical one, and it's still tremendously loud and whiny. The noise is really irritating now - you can hear it above all kinds of other appliances, and it's getting worse, with a real whine and buzz. It never turns off at all, but latley, there have been times when it seems to stick at quite a high speed and won't go down to a lower speed, even when the computer is idle. The bottom of the computer gets hot, and so does the metal track pad - almost too hot to use.

I am thinking of sending it back, as I still have another 6 months of warranty, but I don't think there's much point - they'll just replace it with the same thing again.

It's been suggested here that I replace it with the fan from the S5 or z33A fan, but I am not confident with doing any sort of repairs myself, and don't know where else to send it to get that done. I am in the UK, and don't know anywhere that deals with Asus other than the official warranty people.

So, I thought I'd try to discuss it with the warranty people and see if I could talk them into doing it for me. I am not holding out much hope, as all my previous dealings with them have been extremely frustrating and not much help at all. Still, I can but try. I would like to have a guarantee from them that they are going to do it, and indeed, that they have ordered the part and have it in stock before I send the computer, so I'm not waiting months.

My questions:

Are they likely to be able to get such a part, if the z33/M5A has not been available in the UK (at least I've never seen it)?

Is it likely that I would be able to convince them to do this? Has anyone had any success with something like that before?

If they did agree to it, how would I know that they have replaced it with the better (z33) fan and not just another M5 fan without telling me - is there a different look to it, and/or a different serial number or part number I could check?

If they can't order it, but would still be willing to do the actual replacement for me, can I order it myself from somewhere? None of the UK Asus resellers I looked at had a clue what I wanted - could I get one from ProPortable or somewhere in the states and ship it? Does anyone know what the specific part number I'd/they'd have to order is?

If I can get one, but they won't install it, is there somewhere else in the UK that would install it?

Presumably my warranty would be void, though, except in the case where they agree it was a suitable replacement and did it themselves? I'd really rather not wait until next January when the warranty runs out to do it, as it's so, so, irritating, but I also don't want to give up the last six months of my warranty, so if I went for the last option - trying to find somewhere else to replace it, I suppose I'd have to wait.

Any tips for trying to insist that they do this, and not just replace it with another useless M5N fan? I've had such poor customer service with UK Asus that I don't trust them at all now, and want to make sure I know exactly what they're going to do, and when, and have the right bits there already, before I send it in (it's my only computer, so I can't afford much time without it).

 

Welcome back....sorry that the fan is still giving you trouble, might be a stupid suggestion but have you tried applying a little wd40 or other suitable lubricant to the fan?
You could do this without voiding your warranty and maybe it will help keep the noise down?
a

 

robyn,

If this was last year, we would have had a lot of those fans sitting around...... Didn't I help you by sending you some feet for your notebook? I don't remember, but I wish you asked me for them at the same time... I can't believe it's June of 2006 and you're still without a solution.

 

hi yes it was me that you sent the feet to - wish I'd thought to ask then, but I hadn't realised how much of a problem it was going to be.

I was hoping I could wait until next Dec (07) when the warranty runs out, which is why I've just put up with it til now, but it's getting worse and worse and worse, and I'm not keen to hang on til then if I could find another solution.

Do you not have any z33 fans available any more either? Has that model been replaced by something else now too? What about S5 fans - is that the same thing?

If I ask them to try to get one for me here, would I be able to tell the difference by the serial number or part number or something? I don't think my chances are greatly high of getting them to agree to it, but I'm hoping. I don't know where else to send it if they won't do it.

Never thought about WD40. I'm too new at this to have even dared open anything up!! Though since part of the problem lately is how hot it's getting because it's staying on 'high', I suspect it's more than just the whine that needs to be sorted.

 

I dont understand. Isnt there a service center in the uk? it cant be that hard for them to replace your faulty fan. What about dealers there.? All z33a z33ae fans are the same as the m5n fans. The s5a fans are not but you can actually take the rotor and blades out from many other heatsinks and jerry rig it.

 

As I understood it, the fans were different between the M5 and the z33.

They've already replaced the M5 fan with another M5 one, and it didn't do much good at all (was slightly quieter for a bit, but now is awful again). And from the sounds of it, even at its most normal, the M5 fan isn't very effective - always on, and always extremely noisy.

I had been told the S5 or z33 fans were quieter.

I don't know of any other dealers selling parts here, nor even if the z33 was released here, as I'd not seen it (even under the M5A name that it was supposed to be called in Europe). The place I bought mine from only sells the entire laptop, not parts. And everyone is referred to the Asus service centre, which so far in my experience has been remarkably unhelpful and difficult to deal with! But as it's still under warranty, I have to deal with them - so I'd like to convince them to change my fan for the other model one if possible.

 

as eddie stated and I'm sure you remember reading.... I told you and others at least a year ago that you could take the fan blade assembly out of an S5 heatsink/fan and replace just that on your M5....... You REALLY have to stop worrying about the warranty, because the warranty isn't going to be any good when you get sick of the noise and throw it through the window.... I'd tell you to send it to me and I'll do it for you, but shipping and duties honestly put that way out of reality...... You should be able to call Asus' repair facility in the UK and order a S5n fan... pay for it and tell them it's for an out of warranty unit..... and honestly, from there, if you need step by step help... you could call me or something... it's easy and it's something you really can do buy yourself if you had help from someone who knew what they were doing.

 

i am 100 % positive the z33 fan is one and the same as m5n. Even the radiator and heatsink. The blades them selves are different. You can actually replace the entire heatsink and fan for the z33 without any modding

 

OK, that's probably what I meant when I said the fan was different - the blades different, not the whole fan. I probalby don't appreciate quite what the difference is. So what you're saying is that if it's just the blades, they can somehow be removed and replaced separately from the entire fan? I've never even opened it up and looked at it, so I havne't a clue what the fan or heatsink or anything else even looks like!

I am planning to talk to the UK customer service next week and see what they will do - whether they will order or do anything like this if I say it's out of warranty- they might just refer me elsewhere, which I suppose might be a blessing, given how incompetent they seem to be (it took them almost a month to replace my power brick under warranty!! Then again, none of the other places I tried to get the power adapter from could get one as tiny as the original one except them, so it might be the same with the fans and they are only available as warranty parts or something.)

So what I needed to know was if they SAY they'll replace the fan, how do I know they've not just given me another M5 fan. How do I know they've really ordered the S5 or z33 fan - do they have different numbers or look noticeably different, or what? I need to really sound like I know what I'm talking about when I try to insist on them getting one, or they won't. They'll just tell me they've replaced it, and give me an identical M5 one again like before. They don't even admit they have ever had problems with M5 fans, and despite all my efforts to explain what I wanted done the first time I had it replaced, they wouldn't even discuss it, just told me to send it in, and then sent it back to me with it replaced with a new one.

And if they won't do it, then perhaps I will see if I can just get the S5 part and do it myself...though that scares me - is it really that easy to replace without screwing anything else up?! Where else might that part be available, if they won't order me one? It sounds from what you're saying that they look different enough that I should be able to tell visually??

I'd love to send it to Justin but you're right, a bit infeasible with shipping etc., although I will be in Canada for much of the summer, which is a bit closer! Still not really sensible, though. But I did wonder about ordering the parts from you if I couldn't get them here, as I could get them sent to Canada and pick them up when I'm there.

 

Just bringing this up again to see if anyone can answer my question:
Do the fans look visually different, and is there a distinctive part number that I could see?

I have been trying to email the customer service people here for the past 10 days, but they are really useless. They won't order anything not on warranty, and when I try to explain I want one of the other fans or blades or whatever I'm supposed to be asking for, they won't answer the emails properly, just tell me to send it in. I keep going back and forth with them, re-explaining that I'm not going to send it in if they're just going to replace it with another M5N fan like they did before, and they simply don't read or understand the emails, and send these stupid stock responses. Phone is no better.

So either I give up on them and try to find somewhere else to order it, or I send it in and see what they do. I don't know yet anywhere else that will order them, though I'm looking.

Or I persist trying to get them to agree in writing that they'll order one of these other fans for me, and then find a way to check that that is really what they've done - which is why I need to know if they actually look different or have some accessible part number that I could see. I can imagine that they'll tell me they'll do it, and then not, so I want to be sure!

It's getting really quite hot on the bottom when I'm using it, so not only is it noisy, whiny, and irritating, but I think it's not very efficient at doing its job, either, and definitely needs replacing with something.

 

Does it matter? the z33 fan is what you need. This is why the thread went dead. You got your solution. WHy beat the dead horse with a stick?

 

You don't understand. I need to know whether that is what they've used, if I just send it in and the 'fix' it. I am trying to get them to confirm that they will use the z33 fan, but I don't trust them. I want to be able to look at it afterwards and find out. I want to know how different they are.

Or, I need to have enough specifics about it that I can order it from somewhere else, which I haven't managed to do yet. (The z33 or M5a are not available here, that I can find, and I haven't found someone willing to try to order this part for something they've not heard of).

 

I understand perfectly. What i am telling you is that you will know without looking,,,,,,,the audible difference is very noticeable,

 

OK, that's good to know. When they replaced it with another M5N fan it was also reasonably quiet at first, before all the problems started up again. But if the z33 fan is significantly quieter than that, then I should be able to tell. I shouldn't NEED to look to check whether they did it, if they say they will, but I don't trust them at all, based on my experiences so far!

Of course, I still have the problem of trying to convince them to actually agree to it, and to order the right fan, and they're being next to useless on the customer service front. But I'm still plugging away trying to get them to respond.

Anyone with any other ideas of where I could order a z33 fan myself, if I give up with Asus UK in the end? They said that they will only order things for computers under warranty, and they won't sell me parts independently. And the other companies I've looked at don't stock the M5N anymore, nor the newer M5A/z33. Am I going to have to order it from the US? What about somewhere in Europe - any good parts dealers there?

 

maybe you should just turn on a stereo... That said, use speedfan, and limit the RPMs. That's what I do, and it's dead quiet unless it's under load. Maybe you should just take some compressed air and blow it into the vent, maybe some dust bunnies will fly out of there. Or, solder a series resistor on the power line to the motor, and you'll be limiting the RPMs by voltage change. Dig? Hope it helps, man.

 

It's already getting massively massively hot, though - so much that I can't touch the metal touchpad at times, and the whole bottom of it is very hot, so I'm a bit worried about using speed fan. (Also rules out just turning on the stereo, as I think it's more than just the noise issue! It's also louder than lots of other appliances, even when it's just on in the background and under no load whatsoever.)

Do you use it on the M5N? What settings? Isn't it slightly dangerous if it lets it overheat?

I don't think I'll be soldering anything! I'm strictly a let-the-professionals-do-it kind of person, specially as I paid a lot for this and it's my first laptop so I'm not going to practice on it and screw it up! I'm not even convinced that I could replace the fan or blades myself if I could manage to get hold of one, but if I get step-by-step instructions, I'm willing to have a go, but it terrifies me a bit!

Compressed air might be a good thing to do, though.

 

or just blow like a hurricane into the vent. I've done it before and I've seen some bunnies fly out.

What settings are you using for your comp? power4gear on high all the time? I use speedfan at 20% fan speed normally, and 40% high, with the modded fan (which I got from Justin at ProPortable, and swapped impellers). Make sure you specify to invert the control scheme in the advanced settings. It seems like the new versions of speedfan don't work as well, they sometimes don't change the fan speed automatically... but 4.28 works.

 

i haven't actually got speed fan yet. I was worried about it overheating too much when things are already getting so very hot just with the computer sitting there idle for a couple of hours. Power4Gear is on the second setting for mains power (the car) and the lower one (the walking man) for battery. So I don't really know anything about the settings yet or really how it works. Perhaps when/if I manage to get the new fan I'll ask you more about how to set it up. I have still heard nothing back from the customer service about ordering the z33 fan, nor found anywhere else to order it from myself, so I'm still at a bit of a loss.

I'll try blowing in the vent and see if it makes a difference! There's a sort of grid/mesh just inside the vent covering the opening, which hopefully stops too much from getting in but might also make it harder to clean out.