Cleaned out all dust, laptop still runs hot and noisy with rattling/grinding noise

Okay im not sure what happened....i recently opened up my clevo p151sm1b to clean out the dust on the fans. Put everything back, but noticed that the fans were making a disturbing grinding/rattling noise. Opened it up again, checked, no obstructions, cant find any damage, everything looks OK....

Asked around and some people were suggesting that the bearings have worn out.

Tried asking my reseller for advice, at first they told me that the fans were not designed to be disassembled and they ran into problems trying to re-assemble the fans on several occasions. I was confused by this as ive been able to easily disassemble the fans (all you do is pull the fans out of the socket to clean them). They then wanted to charge me about $50 per fan including shipping to send replacements. I suggested that oiling the fans might help, but they could not tell me exactly which part of the fan to oil. Since the laptop is still under warranty im now asking if they can just send me replacements for the fans under warranty or whether there is anything else they can suggest, at which point they suggested that the fans were dusty (this is after i told them first time round that i had just cleaned out the dust).

Im really frustrated now because the noise is killing me, i cant see any dust that could be causing the problem, and the laptop is running much hotter than before under the same conditions....about 5 degrees hotter on average and the fans are running at high speed and very loud (but not turbo fan loud thankfully).

Can anyone suggest a course of action? Ive also gotten suggestions that i may need to repaste the CPU thermal grease, but how do i do that and which is the CPU heatsink? And how do i tell if thermal grease needs to be replaced?

Picture of fans :

 

Hi !

Try to blow some dry air in the hole, to be sure there are no dust inside !

If it don't work :
I usually put some oil in the little hole in middle ( very little amount ).
Use sewing machine oil ( best imo ), or cycle oil.
It should work this way .

Hope i helped

Elipsus

 

Its very difficult for me to get hold of both unfortunately...im in Australia and its shocking just how hard it is to find compressed air. The usual tech stores dont carry it, so you have to go to out of the way places to get it...nearest store that i know of is at least 30 mins away, one way. Not sure what you mean by sewing machine or cycle oil either? Do you have a specific model or brand name (that is available in Australia)?

Pictures of the CPU fan (As far as i can tell anyway) :





To give you an idea of how hot the laptop is now, with nothing more intensive than firefox open, temps are spiking to 55 degrees or so, and thats when im downclocked to 2.8 ghz. Previously it ran a steady and cool 50 degrees. Now the fan sounds like when im playing a game...very distracting when im trying to do my work.

I removed the CPU heatsink to take a look :





Cant tell whether this is good or bad but the laptop is now spiking to 65+ degrees on low load (just firefox). I made sure the 4 heatsink screws were as tight as they could go too...can someone please tell me what is going on here....

 

Looks like you need to repaste your heatsink. By pulling it off, it appears as though you made the bad paste worse by letting it separate. You should do some research on how to apply a high quality thermal grease like MX-4.

How-To: Properly Apply Thermal Paste and Install a CPU | Maximum PC

 

Okay, thanks.

It looks like rubbing alcohol is pretty expensive in Australia ($10 for a 250ml bottle). Are there any cheaper alternatives that can be found in a supermarket?

Any recommendations for an affordable thermal grease?

 

Uhh. Rubbing alcohol is found at supermarkets here. No sure why it is so expensive there... I don't know of an alternative, you need something that totally evaporates and doesn't leave a residue.

As for the thermal paste, artic silver mx-4 seems to be very popular. None of it is "cheap".

 

Supermarket or phamacy/drug store cains should have rubbing alcohol pretty cheap, but they wont have thermal compound. You'll need a computer store or some electronics store for that. You'll need new before you see the temps go down.

 

You can use nail polish remover in a pinch just be careful where it goes.

 

I think rubbing alcohol is restricted to some degree in Australia, that might explain why its so expensive.

Any idea about what to do with the rattling noise though? Should i try to get the fans replaced?

 

You're probably having a difficult time obtaining high concentrate isopropyl alcohol due to it being used to make methamphetamine (thanks, Breaking Bad!)
Purchasing Isopropyl Alcohol in Australia (aka IPA, rubbing alcohol, propan-2-ol, 2-propanol and isopropanol) | matthewmcdonald.com

You may just have to order some online.

If you are under warranty, I'd try to get everything replaced. It may suck to be without your laptop for a while, but if it breaks down completely, you are looking at having an expensive paperweight

 

The rattling noise is the fan bearing being worn. Use sewing machine oil one drop in centre bearing or replace with new fan if noise present.
The art of repasteing requires tools, solutions and patience /skill.
Follow the guides that other helpful users have kindly posted.

Once attended to post your results.

 

Well if you are not picky some kitchen roll and a tube of paste will get the job done

 

Just got off the phone with the reseller, i was told that the fan usually isn't covered under warranty but they will send out a replacement for me and also some thermal grease. Hope it gets here soon....still have to find some compressed air though.

Update : The reseller is still saying that he thinks "dust in the fan" is causing the rattling/grinding noise...is there anything i can do to show that its a bearings issue?

 

Not without taking it apart and examining things. They are finely balanced though so it can still be hard to spot.

 

Where are the bearings exactly?

 

Most cases of these fans going wrong is someone hitting the fan causing the sleeve to go off centre & some are just faulty from factory. There should be no issue requesting a new fan from your dealer as it is essentially a plug n play component.
I oiled my old alienware cpu fan with sewing machine oil recently and no more rattling for now but i should get a new one soon. Other fans are more terminal especially the old ones, so replace where necessary as fans are very important in ec bios functioning /cooling.

Good luck
Ps - find it amazing that fans are not covered under warranty... Can you pm your dealer?

 

What do you mean by pm your dealer?

Hes saying that the rattling noise is from dust and thats not covered under warranty...im not sure why he thinks its caused by dust though....

 

I can get 99.999% pure isopropanol through my employer. Perks of being a chemist.

(and it's actually not that expensive; around $60 for a 1 liter bottle)

 

I managed to find some "methylated spirits", contains 95% denatured ethanol. Is that appropriate for thermal grease?

 

No you'll want something designed to be the thermal paste, IC Diamond Thermal Compound is one of the most popular and what we prefer.

 

I think OP means whether that's suitable for cleaning off the thermal paste.

 

Yeah I would not use thermal paste to clean paste though

 

Now I read it like that it makes sense. Not sure if that will work to clean it off properly.

 

I dont think you're supposed to use stuff like ethanol to clean thermal. Reason is it leaves residue and some stuff, not sure about ethanol but wouldn't to find out the hard way, if dripped or wiped onto other components or circuits can be damaging. I think alcohol is a goto substitute but it's best to get the arctic clean 60ml kit that comes with two bottles for a two step cleaning process. Well worth the ~$10. I still have the original bottles I bought 6 years ago bit had to buy a new kit because one of the bottles leaked out from lid screwing off in my backpack. It has also thickened up a little because I'm sure those years the alcohol leaked out. The remaining slightly thicker fluid worked fine though. Went ahead and bought new bottles though. Should last @ least 5 years from my experience. And I usually repaste my laptops at least twice a year. More if I testing new pastes but I think I'm done testing. Noctua nt-h1 for when I do others laptops or PC's and gelid gc-extreme for me.

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

Isnt rubbing alcohol just 99% proof alcohol? Hows methylated spirits different?

I would rather not spend $10+ for a one time job, especially as i could pay $10 to have someone else to do the job if i wanted...

 

Not 100% sure. You said methylated ethanol. I believe most use isopropyl in a pinch or just buy something like arctic clean. There are some things you shouldn't use because of residue left after it evaporates, being acidic or caustic or conductive. I would try and find if what you want to use leaves residue behind after it evaporates.

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

Rubbing alcohol is usually 70% isopropyl alcohol + 30% water. Methylated spirits sounds like methanol more than anything else.

The 70% isopropyl alcohol solution is perfectly fine for cleaning off thermal paste.

 

I asked for rubbing alcohol at the pharmacy and they only had some 50% or so alcohol used to disinefect wounds...as mentioned before its hard to get hold of rubbing alcohol in Australia. Without paying a lot.

Replacement fan and thermal grease hasnt arrived yet either. I checked the tracking data and DHL says its obund for a different name and suburb than mine...and i cant call the reseller to ask them whats going on because its the weekend. Sigh...

 

Don't worry about it and just wipe it off with strong kitchen role, using cleaner is not really required most of the time.

 

You could try this. Just use a bunch of qtips and get as much old stuff off as possible. You need the die to be as clean as possible, mirror finish, and make sure no lint or dust is left behind. It is a pain the butt though getting it off with only qtips and it is still irritating to use whatever cleaning solution because it continually smears and smudges. I probably use no less than about 20 qtips depending how good my last repaste was. Good meaning I didn't over do it because if you used too much it is hard to get it out around the crevice around your die.

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

I had to use a lot of methylated spirits to get the thermal grease off. It didnt seem to help much, not sure if its because its crap or the thermal grease was just hard to remove. In the end i had to "scrape" off a lot of it.

Repasted, replaced heatsink, temps back to normal...replaced the fan too, everything seems ok now.

But the cpu temp still seems to spike quite a bit. Under load it generally hovers around 65C, tbut can spike up to 70C for a second before dropping back down to 65. Is that normal?

 

Possibly. You're not even close to temps to worry about. I dont really worry until 85* but my system doesnt even come close to that unless I need to redo my paste. You're probably good.

Sent from my SM-N9005