Pavilion dv5000 fan noise / screen problems - repairable?

My dv5000 is about two years old now. About a year ago, I noticed the fan started to make a horrible grinding noise as it spun, but only occasionally. Now it makes this noise constantly, making me think someone has hidden a small helicopter inside my notebook.

Now, since HP has refused to service my notebook (it was bought and registered in Australia, but I moved and am currently in the USA) I've had a tech friend open it up twice to see if he can find any problems. No wires in the way, nothing looks wrong with the fan - and indeed, the fan is still spinning and keeping the laptop cool, so it still essentially works, it's just making this god-awful noise.

HP also doesn't supply replacement fans for notebooks, and when I asked for one, they sent me a processor instead (and charged me a good sum for it). Needless to say, I'm less than enchanted by their customer service.

The other problem which has come about in the last month or two, is a variety of screen/graphics errors. I'm a regular gamer, and quite often my games have been crashing with or without an error. Other times, they just completely freeze up and I can't do anything except hold down the power button till it switches off. Whenever the games crash, my resolution sets itself to 800x600 and the colours are all distorted. In the last few days I've also noticed my screen turns into horizontal lines, which really worries me. I've read that a driver issue may be the problem, but I can't seem to get my hands on the correct driver from either HP or Nvidia (the card is a Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)

Overheating doesn't seem to be too much of a problem, it rarely gets hotter than it should.

Bearing in mind that I'm quite a computer noob, are there any good fixes you can suggest? I would simply buy a new computer, but with all the country hopping I have to do in the next 12 months all my funds are going into plane tickets >_< Any and all help is appreciated!

<EDIT:> I should probably mention, I have upgraded the ram (probably back in December, I don't quite remember), from the 512mb originally in the laptop with two 1GB sticks of Corsair ram. I doubt that would be causing any trouble, but what do I know? It's the only hardware change I've made to the notebook, although I can't say I noticed any problems immediately after replacing it.

 

Try 169.09 of www.laptopvideo2go.com. Make sure you use the modded .inf. Try turning off Anti-Aliasing or Anti-scopic filtering on your games, see if it still hangs/

You can buy your fan from ebay. Double check the part # in your service manual.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/HP-Pavilion-...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/407807-001-H...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

heres the list:
http://search.ebay.com.au/search/se...ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1&fsoo=1

 

Thanks flipfire, I'm downloading the driver now, I'll post back once I know how it's working.

The antialiasing is definitely off on one of the game already, I'll check the others next time I play them

As for the fan, I have to admit that I'm so disconnected from eBay that I never even thought about checking it. I buy everything online, just not from eBay, haha. I'll probably grab one off there. Thanks for the help!

 

Ok, so as I'm in the installation process for the driver, I get a message that says "The NVIDIA setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. Setup will now exit."

Should I remove all my Nvidia drivers and start fresh with 169.09?

 

snoopy, my situation with the fan is the same. I bought my dv5000 in April '06, also just two years old. There was always some fan noise, but nothing unusual ... it would get a little louder when things were getting busy, but other than that ...

Then about three months ago it started with this loud rattling type of noise. I had an online chat with HP tech support, and they told me to reseat my memory.

Um, okay. Not sure why, but that's what they said. It was 2 a.m. here so I wasn't up to it, but asked more computer-comfy friends the next day, and they said that was nuts.

So I didn't do it.





So yours has been doing this for a year ... and nothing's broken yet? Maybe we can just live with it like this ... ???

 

snoopy, my situation with the fan is the same. I bought my dv5000 in April '06, also just two years old. There was always some fan noise, but nothing unusual ... it would get a little louder when things were getting busy, but other than that ...

Then about three months ago it started with this loud rattling type of noise. I had an online chat with HP tech support, and they told me to reseat my memory.

Um, okay. Not sure why, but that's what they said. It was 2 a.m. here so I wasn't up to it, but asked more computer-comfy friends the next day, and they said that was nuts.

So I didn't do it.





So yours has been doing this for a year ... and nothing's broken yet? Maybe we can just live with it like this ... ???

 

Hi Friends,

Also I Have the same problems. My Laptop sounds like a Helipcopter.
I have a small and a cheap solution. Maybe Works for you also.
Open your laptop, remove keyboard and apply some Lubricant on the fan(maybe fine Oil).
The fan works fine since i did that. No more noise

Thanks,

Wilmar Rodriguez

 

Interesting solution, Wilmar. I'll file it away for future reference ...


An update for me ... about a month ago the fan just crapped out entirely. Stopped turning. And the computer started "passing out," a self-defense mechanism against overheating, maybe? So I sent it to a local laptop repair place. They initially said the whole thing just needed to be cleaned internally, so they did that, sent it back ... and it lasted a week. Fan died again. I sent it back and they finally replaced the fan *and* the fan housing.

It's worked since without a problem. The first two weeks back, silently. And after that, well, slight noise but nothing bothersome. And certainly nothing compared to the racket it was making before ...

 

How much for the fan?