Clevo P170EM GPU fan just died

Bought the laptop from MySN.de about a year and a half ago, and the laptop kept turning itself off constantly. Later inspection showed that the larger GPU fan on the right just died and refuses to work. I tried unplugging it and plugging it again to the motherboard and the fan still refuses to work.

Did anyone encounter this issue and maybe found a possible workaround?

I found out this site:
Sager Genuine NP8150, NP8170 And Clevo Genuine P150HM, P170HM GPU Heatsink Cooling Fan 6-31-X720S-101
But the fan seems to be out of stock there. Does anyone know where can I order a replacement from?

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

i would guess that should be covered under warranty so contact their support and start a ticket for a rma.

 

I'm out of warranty and no longer living in Germany...It'll probably cost an arm and a leg.

 

mysn warranty is actually 2 years basic which includes courier,parts,labour but as i guess you posted that link in $$$ if your in america then the courier wouldnt be covered.
i would still have a chat with them as they might be able to get a fan sent to you if you pay the postage which would be a lot cheaper than sending the laptop back.

 

I'll give it a go, thanks.

Boy, am I bummed about this...

 

If not sager will sell the part.

 

Thanks Meaker. How much does it cost?

 

I have not personally checked, it should not be as expensive as a battery for instance though.

 

Should be right around $30 - $40 but of course, everyone's price varies. Make sure it's the fan and not the board. Fans seldom go bad.

 

Fans go bad quite easily, those little ones they put on desktop chip sets were terrible.

Sager do use decent ones but still.

 

I actually never thought of that. But since one fan spins and the other doesn't, I'm hoping this is a good indication that the board is not dead. Fingers crossed.

 

OK, MySN.de were just great and offered to send me 2 fans (for CPU and GPU) and a thermal paste, so I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome and price offer.

Now, does anyone perhaps have a proper guide or a youtube video for dissasembling the fans and repasting? I'm pretty certain I know how it goes, but I don't want to leave any room for error.

What worries me is the whole repasting ordeal, since I have no idea what solvent to use in order to remove the old paste and I really don't want to spend any more than I have to.

Thank you in advance!

 

will post up later for you as at work and dont have the links.

 

Hi, replacing the fans is the easiest part - just unscrew the screws and they come off just like that. Make sure you disconnect the connector, its more tricky than the unscrewing part.

Clean the old thermal paste with a soft cotton cloth (some old shirt or socks that you might use for cleaning surfaces). Might use a little alcohol for easier cleaning, but very very careful not to spill anything.

In youtube, there are tons of videos about applying thermal paste, me personally I drop a SMALL drop at the center of the surface area and just put the heatsink on, slowly and without twisting it (to avoid bubbles forming from the air).
Just make sure you use small quantities.




The small drop method: What is the Best Way to Apply Thermal Grease? - Part 1 | Hardware Secrets
...is the best method.

Better off with 80% surface cover with tiny drop of paste, than 110% spill and thick layer which doesent help cooling the component.

 

Awesome, thanks guys

Should the old paste come right off? You mentioned I might use a little alcohol, will something like acetone work?

Edit: OK, acetone is probably a major no no.

 

Dont use anything strong
I used spiritus, dont remember how many degrees.

It comes off easy enough. The tough part is removing paste from crevices and uneven places (some soldering joints, etc.).
My old laptop, P150HM, had too much paste on the GPU (dang that reseller) and removing all of it was a nightmare. It was spilled below the black tape-foil that surrounded the CPU insolation plate. Below the foil, there were tiny solders and transistors, really hard to clean.

BUT im sure you will have an easy time yourself! Just relax, dont overexcite yourself (as to avoid sweaty palms) and just clean the damn thing. Confidence comes from practice, as does experience.

 

Rubbing alcohol, the higher the % the better. I open up the bottle and put a cotton ball on top of it, flip it over for a second or two, just enough to get some into the cotton then use that to clean it off.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...e-guide-upgrading-thermal-paste-your-own.html


these video's are for the equivalent 15" EM service video but its almost the same.

 

Awesome :thumbsup:

 

Just be slow and careful and keep yourself electrically grounded.

 

I made it a point to order a spare CPU and GPU fan when I ordered the rig last year. I had had a nightmare when my previous laptop's GPU fan stopped working after 4 years. They cost me 35 USD each, still new since the originals are working just fine. You don't wanna take any chances with these suckers run out of the market and your entire rig is rendered useless because of a cheap 4th tier Chinese flea fan.

 

They have been using the same fans for some time so replacements are still being produced and spares are kept even after that.

 

I got the fans, replaced the 'faulty' cpu fan (no thermal paste was required, nor provided), and, lo and behold, the laptop came to life...for the whole day.

Over the night it went on an endless power cycle of turning on, running for a few seconds and turning off again without turning on the fans, exactly like it used to. I got really bummed by this and considered this might be a faulty motherboard.

But then I figured something out: I used Prema's custom made BIOS for the P170EM and maybe something wasn't done right. Perhaps I forgot to disable 'Intel Anti-Theft' or somesuch nonsense in the BIOS when I first installed it 6 months earlier, perhaps this is a bug, who knows. I disabled the Intel Anti-Theft option and most of the fancy-shmancy options in the BIOS (there aren't that many), flashed the stock 0212 EC and 0217 BIOS from the MySN.de site and everything works as it should for two days now. I hope it'll stay that way * fingers crossed*.

This probably means that the fan may not be faulty at all, so I kept it anyway. Too bad the stock BIOS is horrible and keeps turning the fans on and off every few minutes, but I'll take anything that I can get for the time being.

This still leaves me with a mystery, though: why replacing the CPU fan brought the laptop to life for a day in the first place? Perhaps it's a mix with a faulty fan AND a corrupted BIOS?

 

That's the world of computers - you never suspect what tiny change in software or hardware can bring. In your case it brought your computer offline for a good amount of time (and your nerves to go with it).
God forbid I have to deal with some issue like this, Im gonna flip out on a next level.

Sometimes (rarely, though), it pays off to pay the piper (in that case Alienware or MSI) for a machine that has unlocked bios and unrestrictive upgrading capabilities in the GPU department.
But even then, there have been reports of horrible experiences with bugged firmware, software and hardware, one can never be 100% problem-proof.

The only way we can "safely" experiment with technology is if we always have a spare device on-hand, in case something goes wrong.
Otherwise - if it ain't broke, don't fix it and use everything stock. (im a hypocrite, cause my W370ET uses PREMA's bios)

 

Who says I haven't... I went through the whole 7 stages of grief (twice) with that stinkin' machine.

But yeah, at least it works now. Keep using that Prima BIOS, it's very good.

I mainly shared my experience so if someone would suffer similar symptoms, they might find out what caused it and fix it, sparing them the headache.

 

Yes, the BIOS is awesome, so far I haven't had any issues (both with the first version and the current one).

But really, when something goes wrong with the PC, it goes big. Looks like Clevo went trough the trouble of making things so complicated to tune, it can absolutely boggle your mind and you never find the true answer as to WHY they did it.

Fan tables...should be accessible (or adjustable via their control panel) but they aren't.
BIOS functions (like disabling the discreete graphics, ram timings, etc) = none to speak of.
Not even gonna mention the VBIOS restrictions rendering the whole "upgradability" null and void.
Even clevo gpus wont work on some old machines.

That was one of the reasons to buy the cheaper W370ET over P370EM, I didn't want the illusion of "future upgradability".

 

They got burned at points with people messing with the system and a high rate of returns from what I can tell.