there's a ghost in my laptop

he's doing two things;

1. producing an annoying whining sound from the left fan, that sounds like wind whistling through a window on a spooky night. far louder than the right fan, suggesting it's not normal. it started like 1 month after purchasing my e1705.

2. he haunts my wifi card, the draftn new one or whatever. I'll boot up.... and sometimes wait twenty minutes.... then all of a sudden, get a wireless connection! and the whole time I could see the signal on the wireless card software thingy..... it was there the whole time! yet just up and decides to connect after a half hour. clicking on the signal and telling it to connect apparently doesn't do anything, it's pure luck that wins.

note: the ladder problem seems to have resolved itself somewhat, I'm begining to believe it's my military base's wifi router to blame.

 

1) dust it? Sounds like you may have some hair or something wrapped around a fan, or that the fan is hitting.

2) Welcome to the world of wireless There are tons of funny things that can happen in the wireless spectrum, doubly so on a military base. Might consider getting netstumbler or some other analyzer and figuring out what's actually going on. Can be quite educational, and interesting.

 

is it safe to open the laptop up? if so, are there instructions anywhere on how to?

can I put some wd40 on the fan? would that help? I'd spray it straight to the fan from the underside... but not sure if contact with wiring would ruin the laptop.

 

support.dell.com All the manuals for all their computers are there. Find the one for the E1705, it will have complete instructions with pictures on how to completly take apart and reassemble your notebook.

 

You need to unscrew the vents and use compress air to get all the dust out of the system

 

Look at the support dell site to see all the manuals to open your laptop. Then as gridalker said compressed air is the best way to clean everything inside.

 

DO NOT use WD-40.....no matter what they say it's a cleaner not a lubricant. Water will lubricate as long as it's wet and WD-40 is no better.

WD-40 will also attract dust.....or rather give it something to stick to. I know people love to use it on bike chains and other squeeks, but it's terrible stuff. Also it can damage some plastics, it smells, and it could cause a short since it's conductive.....not to mention the indiscriminant spray pattern of the nozzle.

The bearings in most if not all fans are sealed so greasing them does almost nothing......Talk to dell about a new fan....or a replacement.

Download i8kgui fan control and try that fan at different speeds and see if that has an effect on the sound.

some people also forget that the DVD drive runs as long as there is a disk in it and it will often have a "higher" pitch sound. so make sure there is no Disc in the drive and see if that helps. I know it's a simple thing, but you would be surprised how often that might be the case.

 

so I got the i8kgui fan control, and it lets me throttle the fan to either stop, fast and fastest. no noise on stop, some whining on fast, and bloody annoyingly loud when on high. so it's definitely the fan that won't shut up. I can't leave it off however, because I game for extended periods of time and I notice the temp rise quite high.

note, with my bytec aluminum fan cooler pad underneath, coupled with both internal fans on fastest speeds, I'm getting 17 degrees C under full load of games/itunes running for multiple hours... nice. just need to shut up the fan now

 

dell is your next stop then it looks like.

17c?? nice....not bad at all....

did I mention that mine get's down to 4c!!!!

....when I am outside of course (it's fricken cold Mr Bigglesworth) BRING ON WINTER!!!!!!

 

solution:

call the ghost busters.

 

erm... no way.

so I decided to crack open the hood of my bad boy laptop, took out the fan and sprayed a good deal of this lube oil I found in the garage. well, dripped it in. the bugger still squeals like a whining ghost, no luck in repairing it myself. I think I'll just leave it the way it is, I don't wanna loose the laptop for a couple weeks just for the fan.

 

Dont listen to everyone else. This is a clear cut case of a poltergeist living inside of your laptop. Im not exactly sure how to get rid of these pesky spirits, since this is a notebook forum and not a supernatural forum. Try not to anger it.

 

you're in the military,

what do you do if theres something you don't like? shoot at it!!!

let see if that ghost can eat lead and still survive