Cooling fan replacement/heatsink questions Dv7 Quad Edition

Hey, all.

It's been a few months since I got my comp with your assistance. It's been performing like a dream, but there've been a lot of little headaches; mostly due to my learning the ropes while learning other things, but some actual hardware-based problems as well. Specifically; the cooling fan is now rattling and making a raspy death-rattle kind of noise. I switched the fan from always to on demand, and it was as quiet as can be until I do anything; at which point the fan creaks up. It's pretty warm too, although not quite danger-zone hot from my estimation.

In addition, the HP folk have been pretty adamant about it, and I have no real local technicians who can or are willing to handle it. For what should be, by my estimation, a nine to twenty dollars fan, it seems there's something I don't know about cooling fans and Dv7s - and that brings me to my question. I desperately need this replaced; I need a laptop that'll last for at least the end of it's warranty. I need to replace this - but I haven't really handled a fan replacement before. I've got big, meaty fingers. I'm clumsy. I lose screws. Please, folks - walk me through this or at least give me a nod in the right direction. I'm walking blind, I'm a clutz, and I live in the boonies. S'got it's ups and downs.

 

Guide to disassembling the Dv7.

How to disassemble HP Pavilion dv7 series notebook >> Inside my laptop

 

Thanks.

I was really hoping that I wasn't going to have to disassemble this. I'm not good at these things... But, well, I guess that's that. Also, might I know what out of the myriad HP-flavored fans I'm supposed to buy?

 

^ nice! mag alloy.
and, no idea how he is holding the LCD assembly like that.

My advice, don't do it. IF you have accurately described your skill level, you don't want to be messing with your motherboard alone like that.
If the fan was just accessible under the palmrest, it would be different.

You should probably get this covered under warranty. I can't tell you exactly how to do that, but they should replace it.

 

Thanks for the advice.

Sent it out, got it back. Said they replaced the fan, and now it runs quiet but worse - the GPU overheats while running almost anything that uses it(it's even clammed up during intense bouts of... Word-processing). I've tried playing around with the Intel (hah) processor, the ATI processor... It doesn't matter. The only thing that works now is the failsafe which turns the display adapter off when it runs too hot. Thanks for the help and advice, but I'm contemplating a refund if one is still offered - is it too much for a laptop in this day and age to run half as well as one I bought seven years ago? Sigh. Unless anyone knows how to seriously reduce heat, this just won't work for me.

I realize this is slight thread necromancy, but I felt I'd let folks know how it turned out. Hope that's all right.

Edit: Oh, in addition, will changing the resolution decrease heat generated/power used? One of the reasons I got this was to program, but that's kind of out the window for now. I really don't mind much, I guess, if it's in something like 1024 x 768 if it just works.