Inspiron 1525 CPU fan from hell - how to destroy it?

Hi!
I have a Dell Inspiron 1525. The fan is noisy as hell. It has always driven me totally insane. And it is not possible to regulate it through software or BIOS settings to set other temperature thresholds and so on. So I thought I would just have to live with it.
However, some weeks ago I tried to clean out some dust from it. Thought maybe that would help, since the noisy fan seemed quite ineffective at cooling. So I took a piece of thin flat plastic cut off from a phone card and raked with it in the grille on the back where the hot air comes out. I did not get any dust out, but I did not find any other method. It seems to be impossible to reach the fan without breaking the laptop into pieces.
After that the laptop was quiet because the fan did not work anymore at all. I found out that using cooling packs from the freezer to cool it down did a great job when only doing everyday tasks like e-mail and surfing and listening to music. So I was very happy with my broken fan and without that terrible noise.
However - now the fan has resurrected from hell to haunt me and drive me insane. At 40°C cpu temperature it howls like a werewolf. I'm so afraid. I need help. I must kill it. Please, help me! What can I do?

 

Wow - i would not have recommended trying to dust it that way. The only way to dust it is to open up the laptop and pull the fans out - the heatsinks that are in the way keep you from accessing the fans directly. Also, cleaning out the heatsinks is a much better way to reduce dust than to try what you did. I would recommend that you open it up by looking at the service manual for your laptop and dust it that way - that's the only way to really clean it. After that, if your fan is still making extraordinary noises, i would say there's something wrong and it's broken, and you will have to replace it.

 

I concur.

@OP, the way you decribed the fan was hilarious. I'd suggest silver bullets.

 

How about you get a canister of compressed air and spray it through the fans?

 

That helps, but only slightly. the dust buildup is on the heatsink, not the fan, and to get that clear (properly, it's still best to open up.

 

Absolutely agree. In fact, I would probably advise against spraying canned air into the vents, as all this will do is blow the dust back inside your notebook - not an ideal situation. Blowing the vents out (i.e. taking the back off and blowing through them to the outside world) is a much better solution.

Remember, if you take your notebook apart to clean it out, wear an anti-static wrist strap or ground yourself before going near the insides. I've never actually destroyed anything inside mine when I was younger and didn't take this precaution, but I was just a lucky git I think

 

The first time you probably jammed dust somewhere, or the fan blade was positioned in a funky way, and so there wasn't enough start-up torque to turn it, but I guess it dislodged itself.

Have you tried contacting Dell, if it's still under warranty? You make it sound so horrible, beyond normal. The other option is to buy a new fan from somewhere and try to replace it yourself.