How often should a laptop fan be replaced?

I know question isn't exactly the most easy thing to answer, but in your experience how often do laptop fan's break?

I am concerned because my laptop fan becomes audible and very frequent when doing virus scans or running anything flash based, sometimes they don't turn off until the scan is complete or flash hasn't been used for a while.

Is it possible for a fan to wear faster even if free of dust if it's on more often than not?

I know a fan never really turns off, but mine is pretty audible, not ear piercing audible nor very annoying but its definitely the loudest laptop I've owned (I use it only on a wooden desk and keep everything dust free)

I do not hear anything that could indicate a fault with it, I can only hear it spin up and hear the airflow, the laptop temperature has never gone above 60oc, and the fans have been set in BIOS to switch on once the machine has peaked 50oc, there is no way to change this as there are no options in BIOS and speedfan does not work, obviously they don't want people changing this.

 

When the fans starts making a grinding noise or it stops turning, thats when I would replace it.

 

The FAN, pretty much as every other material thing in this world, gets old and wears out! Don't forget the fan is actually a bearing - each bearing has certain estimated lifetime, based mainly on millions of cycles. Hence - the more and the faster the FAN is in use - the sooner it will need replacing.

This however gives no particular information about "how often" as it depends on the quality, as well as on dust, temperature and other factors. I used my previous laptop for 4 years (it has been on almost 24h a day) and I never had to replace the FAN. Unfortunately others complain of a broken FAN few months or an year after purchase.

As said above - whenever the FAN stops spinning or starts making unnatural sounds - this is the time to replace it. If you think it is just more noisy (pay attention that it is normal to be more noisy when spinning on higher speeds!) - you can try lubricating the bearing - this might help a bit.

 

The average lifetime of a fan should be around 50,000 hours (read it somewhere long time ago). That's why most users don't need to change it during the lifetime of a laptop.

50,000 hours means 5.7 years of continuous operation. If you are using your laptop for 12 hours/day it should take more than 11 years for the fan to die out.


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Uhmm, to be anal about it, the fan has a bearing, but it's a fan (or a fan assembly), not a bearing.

In any case, practically all laptop fans these days have magnetic bearings, that are not subject to substantial mechanical wear. Of course, these fans still only have a finite lifetime, and wear out eventually, but as has been pointed out the lifetime of your typical laptop fan far exceeds the useful life of the laptop itself. So, unless you have a bum fan, you should not have to replace it, ever.

 

Thanks for the correction, that's what I meant

Yes - usually one FAN lasts long enough, but there are always exceptions or defective models...:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/554891-where-buy-vaio-z-vpz11c5e-replacement-fan.html

 

If you don't constantly blow out the fan with compressed air and clean it out regularly, it should be quite a while. I still have Pentium 2 notebooks on their first fan. It really comes down to dumb luck, I have seen certain notebook manufacturer fan's fail very very quickly.

 

To be honest the only few laptops with defective FANs I've seen were all Dell. But it is rather a luck-thing.

 

I agree with the posters above, if it's not broken/irregular sound, don't replace. Also, when fans and especially the heatsink it blows through becomes clogged with dust, the fans will work harder and will sound louder. I think this is what you are experiencing. I would suggest dismantaling the laptop to get at the fans and heatsink. Sometimes, just air pressure from the outside doesn't clean it all out and may force large dust clots to get on the fan fins and slow it or stop it from spinning. I had this happen on one of my laptops. Also, if using compressed air, try to jam your fans because it's not rated to spin at an abnormally high speed. I hope you don't have a HP, it's a b i t c-h to open up.

 

Depends on the fan.

My Vaios fan was replaced just within it's warranty time of 2 years, the fan on my old laptop still works after 5,5 years, 3 of those years with heavy use.
On another old laptop the fan also still works after 6 years.

 

that maybe the case when you have a clean environment, but when you factor in dusts, moistures, etc then the life expectancy of a fan is lot less. Usually 3 years of use (around 8 hrs of day) is about the average life of many Toshiba fans (which is used in many laptops, like Sanyo batteries are).

There is no real hard no. that you can rely on to tell you how often a fan needs to be replaced. A good indicator that your fan needs to be cleaned or replaced, is when it start to make noises or it is working at its top speed all the time.

 

The only fans I have ever had fail on me were really crappy bottom of the barrel desktop fans I bought on Newegg.com for a pittance years ago. However, I opened them up, cleaned the sleeve bearing, and replaced the grease. That kept them going for maybe another 6 months to a year.

Anyway, fans last a very very long time and are not a normal wear item. Chances are you will never have to touch it. Think about the wheel bearing in a car. It is similar in that it uses ball bearings and sees heavy use for years without failing. Some do fail and need replacement, but it is rare, and most cars go to the junkyard with their original wheel bearings.

 

not all have bearings. My g51j comes with a brushless motor. Also agreed when it dies...also don't forget to clean it once in awhile.

EDIT also fans come as single and double ball ebarings mostly and have anywhere from 10,000-40,000 hours of operation. so they last a very very long time

 

Most laptop fans will work for years.

The dominant factor is the bearing used on the fan; sleeve, ball bearing, and I believe I've heard of fluid bearing used on laptops (perhaps very old laptops?).

The #1 fan used in laptops, and also the technical worst is sleeve bearing. The good thing is the since the blades are small in laptop fans and weigh almost nothing they cause very little issue for the motor and cheap sleeve bearing so in the end they can last many years.

The 2nd is ball bearings, these are not typical if present at all. I have only seen one single laptop use ball bearing, apart from just ordering one yourself.

This is a ball bearing:


Sleeve bearing:

 

There is nothing wrong with sleeve bearings. They can be good and they can be bad depending on the manufacturer.

 

Well they can be good, however not as good as good ball bearing fans.

While it doesn't really matter in laptops at all since the weight is so insignificant, in desktops it can really cause some issues with high performance fans.

Ever seen a sleeve bearing 120mm@5000 rpm? Won't last long I can assure you of that, specially if it's in horizontal position.

 

as i said earlier soem laptops like mine use brushless motors....wish i knew how to overload the brushless motor to make ti spin faster and at full speed 24/7....darn thing won't turn on until it's like 85C :/

 

If it is keeping the laptop at a reasonable temperature then it is doing its job. Sony replaced the defective fan on my laptop twice within one year. The current one has been working for over a year without problems and keeps the laptop under 95 degrees ferinheight .

 

You guys are living in the previous century. Not many fans these days use mechanical bearings, and practically none use ball bearings. The cheap and crappy ones have sleeve bearings, but if your fan is any good at all, it will have (essentially contactless) magnetic bearings. Decent ball bearings are too expensive (unless you are talking about some fancy-shmancy just-for-show third-party fans), and make no sense for this application.

 

Ah yes that is true however Sleeve bearing is still #1 (well rifle bearing would be more like it).
At any rate laptop fans should not be due to failure for many many years.

Also forgot to mention but maglev fans are expensive.

I may have a maglev fan at my home from my desktop, I don't remember though if I had used that or my Yate Loon's for a shroud.

Oh yes@ brushless motor:

All computer fans (desktop/laptop) have bearings that help the fan stay rigid and stable on the assembly..

 

What planet are you sending this transmission from?

 

I think the important note to take away from here, is that the fan do last a long time, but how frequent one needs to replace them depends on.

1. Quality of the heatsink fan (most are made by two japanese manufacturers).
2. Environment in which it works in.
3. How long you use it for between each shutdown.
4. How often you clean it.
5. How fast it is working at normally.

Also, rather than using age as the sole determining factor for failure, you should use a monitoring software to look at RPM of the fan versus CPU temp, the sound the fan is making, and whether there is sufficient airflow coming out of the vents at a given temperature.

 

Is blowing compressed air into the exhaust port really bad? Because I have done it quite a few times now (~10-20 times)..

 

I wouldn't say is bad but i never like the idea blowing the dust back in the vent, doing so to clean the dust stuck on the heatsink. Large dust particles might not even clean out from the air intake vent and stuck somewhere in the fan or system or even into the fan motor. (Some fan intake holes are so small i doubt it can flush anything out from there, some doesn't even have intake holes right under the fan, like the Asus N61.)

My dell laptop which is about 3 years old and the fan seems dying about year ago but still functional till now. One Compaq laptop i owned was about 5 yrs old and the fan still works. I can honestly say i never seen laptop with a dead fan so far.

 

If you can provide an exit for the dust and keep the fan from spinning it shouldn't do any harm.

Dust can build up on the inside and it might be impossible to blow out through the fins.

On a Vaio SZ you can remove the bottom plate and the keyboard - if you then blow "canned air" in, the dust can leave through two large openings without any issue.
If you cannot provide an exit path for the dust then you won't get any real benefit from it as you just shuffle the dust around a bit.

 

But is it damaging to the fan if I just blow into the exhaust?

 

If it gets into the bearing (of whatever kind) then it might be or if it blocks the rotation - otherwise, no.

 

Just make sure the fan is not running, the material of the fan can withstand quite alot abuse actually.

 

I did it a few times where it was running =(

 

Well now you know it. There's nothing to worry about for now. I usually clean laptop fans with a cotton swab to wipe micro dust. Most of the process required to atleast take the heatsink off. Which leaves me alot job to reapply thermal compound. Do it like every 6 or 12 months or so is fine, depend how you use it. Like putting laptop on somewhere dusty/fluffy or on a clean table.

But like DetlevCM said, if something gets into the bearing (aka inside the fan motor area) it can be a bad thing. Fan will eventually run slower or stuck completely cuz dust scrambled it.

 

You know, I have a slight suspicion dust was the cause of my fan replacement -> at least it got worse after blowing it out once...

 

Ya know i pulled hair strings and dust out of my laptop cooler before, and it runs better now.

 

Dust cannot "Clog a bearing", I don't think. While it could get inside, it would do is in such minute amounts that it wouldn't matter anyways, that is for ball bearing and for sleeve bearing (rifle bearing) iirc).
Now a fan can be "clogged" with dust/debris etc but the fan it self will keep spinning what gets clogged is the heat fins (exhaust).

Now using an air blower while the fan is on is actually bad for the motor, it causes it to overwork and can overheat. While the actual few seconds it will accelerate won't do anything to do it, on cheaper laptops it may not always be the case.

Lastly the only way I recommend to clean a heatsink is to have access to the fan and to blow the air OUT of the computer not IN.

 

Thanks..i'm just I afraid I damaged something... the laptop is brand new

 

Nah you are okay, just remember to turn off the computer before you blow the dust out. Never blow the dust in.

 

That and make sure your fan is stationary when you clean it out, or you will ruin the bearings spinning it freely trying to cleaning out.

 

when it dies

(or stops cooling your cpu/gpu... and is clean)

 

Exactly. Most fans are rated to a continuous duty cycle of 2.5 to 5 years. Many of us turn ours off atleast half the day and not accounting for startup related wear and abnormalities. The fan will normally outlive the laptop 5 to 10 years. The cheap mass produced crap that actually makes it into various models.... can be a problem.

That said they fail all the time. I make it a policy of trying to locate a spare ahead of time. Never needed to though.

 

Not if you intentionally spin the fan at such a high RPM. That can when the computer isn't on, the fans can generate current when spun and fry the motherboard. Isn't the first time it has happened.

 

Unplug the fan? That was the hardest part yeah?

Now yeah ive heard the same thing for free spin damage before dunno what to think. As far as generation goes, unplug it there is no load on the motor assembly nor is there nothing being fried by electricity anyways.

 

I don't know if it's just me, but it seems my fan is running louder now =(

But the CPU temperatures are normal

 

Put a single drop of synthetic oil onto the bearings. It should solve the noise issue.


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If the fans are louder, that means they're dirty: clean them with more than just air - a good cleaning with good quality Q-Tips and some rubbing alcohol should quiet them down a lot.

Make sure you clean both sides of each blade.

Good luck.

 

You are not alone.

Sometimes $10 device can save you from a lot of hassle. I haven't needed so far either...


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My laptops almost s month old and I'm replacing the left gpu fan because when it starts pushing (when my laptops about to take off for a flight to Fiji) it starts doing a grinding noise... Called alienware and getting replaced!