Fan on my Gateway M-6850FX seems brokenish

I've had this laptop for four months now - baby'ed it the whole time. I rarely move it and when I do it's always in a case, it's just generally treated very well. I normally raise to so it can stay cooler.

I got a new desk and I stopped raising it, but also haven't played any intensive games (Rise of Nations is what I'm addicted to now) but my fan has started to make a scratching sound. As if it's rubbing against something. Would it be wise of me to open it up and try to clean it out or check what it is?

This happened to me on a budget-box Acer 5050 except with the Acer it was a horrible sound that was un ignoreable, this I can hide with music.

Any recommendations? It's not a big enough deal for me to send it into Gateway

Also, how can I find the temperature of my CPU & GPU? My hardware is listed in my signature.

Thank You to you all

 

Get some compressed air (canned), take the fan panel off, and use the lttle tube that comes with te ca to blast compressed air through the fan and heatsink fins, that *should* fix the problem - it's probably just caked dust.

 

Thank you very much were do they sell that do you know? I'm surprised after only 4 months but it's area is rather dusty...

 

What country are you in?

Any electronic enthusiast's store should have some, best-buy, circuit city, wal mart might have some, in Australia, places like dick smith electronics and active electronics will stock it.

Basicall, any store that sells electronic components or computer parts should have it in stock, it'll cost you a couple of bucks for a can. Just make sure not to touch anything inside the computer if you can help it unless you've got a little experience.

 

The compressed air didn't help me. The fan is still making the sound