PSA: don't dismantle your X60/X61 to oil the fan

You have to remove pretty much everything to get to it, including the motherboard, and then you can't actually oil the fan. Maybe if you dismantle the HSF unit, but that doesn't look like it would go particularly well.

 

I'm assuming your HSF is going bad thus the drastic action?

 

Yeah, the fan has started to make some grinding noises. It's nothing that a little oil wouldn't normally fix, but I guess Lenovo would rather I buy a new HSF unit.

 

More like a new X series laptop...

 

a new HSF is only $30 on ebay and could last a pretty long time. since that's the only mechanical element in a notebook besides the hard drive, that's seems like a fare deal to me if it's broken after 4-5 years.

 

I know of a T60 fan that was grinding and was oiled successfully. Granted, it's a lot easier to get to the fan on a T60 compared to an X-series.

 

Well the problem was, once I got the HSF unit out, I took off the sticker and it was just solid plastic underneath. So either the fan is sealed, or the motor access is on the side facing the heatsink. That would make sense since that side is up when the laptop is in use.

Unfortunately, I didn't see any obvious way to remove the fan from the heatsink. And even if I did, there was a controller PCB attached to the fan where I would expect to oil it. If another HSF unit weren't just $30 like mentioned in this thread, I might have attempted it.

I'll probably wait until I get a new X220 or T420s in May, and grab a new one then. Just in case something goes wrong, I don't want to be without a computer.

 

It's the only mechanical thing in mine

 

Well, now that you have it apart, buying a replacement would be a good idea!

 

The fan bearing on the ThinkPad models aren't accessible from lifting up a sticker. I know some PC case fans are like that, but this is even easier.

I really hope you didnt put it back together yet...

To oil/clean the fan you lift up the entire fan blade. It just slides off the spindle bearing. The magnetic field keeps it hovering in the right position otherwise... no circlip or retention spring like you might find in other fans. From there you wipe off the spingle of gunk, maybe clean a piece of hair or two that has wrapped around it, and put a few drops of oil in the hole and reassemble.

 

Ugh, I guess I'll be taking it apart again. It should be a lot easier this time.

 

Let us know how it goes. I learned something by just reading this thread, so I'm curious how it works out for you.

 

Well, I took it apart again today. To get the fan blade assembly off, I had to pop four black tabs through holes in the copper plate the fan mounts to. I was able to get them back through, and they held a bit, but I put on some super glue to be safe. It clearly wasn't designed to be taken apart like this. The fan is much, much quieter now that it's been oiled, though some of that may be the fact that I cleaned the dies and heatsink contacts and applied some arctic silver. The old TIM's were about three years old, so I'm sure they weren't as effective at they once were. I was going to check the typical RPM's before and after, but I totally forgot.

I really hope Lenovo has started to make the heatsink directly contact the northbridge. In this model, and if I recall in my old T60, there's a gap between the two, and it relies on a thick TIM pad to transfer heat at all. Unfortunately, I took it apart when it was a little too warm, and the pad fell off and couldn't be reused. In it's place I had to use a big thick glob of paste. Neither of these are a particularly good solution.

I also removed the speaker. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but I've noticed since moving from a 32bit to a 64bit operating system that the speaker has been picking up a lot of crosstalk, resulting in quite a bit of noise, especially when scrolling websites with a lot of pictures. Between that and the reduction in fan noise, my laptop almost seems silent compared to pre-op. Overall a big success, and it definitely helps in waiting for May to buy its replacement.