Vaio Z11 fan part number?

Hi all, does anyone know what the part number is for a Vaio Z11 fan? Mine keeps making grinding noises and is running fast a lot. I've opened up my laptop a few times and taken the fan apart to play with it, but nothing changes, so I might as well replace it.

 

Seems to be 1-787-943-11

 

Try to grease the bearing. Maybe that helps.

 

I'm not experienced in this stuff, so you'll have to forgive me if I ask what the bearing is and what grease to use.

Also, a couple of times this week, the fan wouldn't even turn on when the laptop started. It had to turn on literally six times each time (and shut down from overheating) before the fan would start up. After taking it apart today, though, the problem seems to have corrected itself. Also, when I would connect to my TV via HDMI and play an HD movie while doing Photoshop and everything else I usually do, it would sometimes shut down (I'm assuming from overheating). I used to be able to do that all the time though. Luckily this doesn't happen that often, though I'm afraid if I push my laptop too hard, it'll turn off.

Sometimes when I smack near the Esc key (where the fan is) or move the laptop around, the sound goes away. Also sometimes when I'm doing something like video rendering (something intensive), the noise will go away. Why would the noise come and go?

Maybe you're right about greasing it. It sounds like there's two sounds coming from the fan - the regular whirling sound, and a grinding sound on top of that sound (like the regular sound is in the background, the loud grinding one is on top of it). The blades aren't touching anything of course, so I don't think any physical obstruction is happening. So it has to be something else.

Bleh IDK.

 

You can follow this guide:
Fan maintenance - oiling bearings for fun and profit!
This guide helped me, as my old motherboard had a rare northbridge fan which started to make grinding noises. After this guide my fan suddenly picked up and stated to work as new. However your problem maybe accessing the bearing itself.

The replacement fan is expensive on ebay. I don't think you'd like to spend $156 on a replacement fan, but ill give you the link for the giggles.
Click Here

 

I can open up the fan just fine, but I don't know where that grease would go. After you open up the black plastic encasing the blades, you can pull out the blades and the magnetic "stick" that it is attached to which goes into the motor. The motor is this computer chip with four golden spindled coil thingies around it.

 

I'm following this thread with interest. My old Z11 has exactly the same grinding fan noise, especially when cold. I've opened it a few times, but never had the courage to try to reach the fan. It seems buried beneath a bunch of stuff, mainly the MoBo I guess.

How much do you need to remove to reach and remove it?

 

Yes, you need to take out the motherboard. Take off the keyboard baseplate, remove all ribbon cables from the motherboard, take it out, flip it over and you have access to the fan and heatsink assembly. Take care when lifting the ribbon cable plastic latches because they break easily if too much force applied on them.

 

Not for the fainthearted, people with poor eyesight, people with two left thumbs, etc. Be very careful with the heatsink compound on the CPU and the thermal pad on the GPU. Read the disassembly guide carefully.

 

It's actually pretty easy.

1. Unscrew the necessary screws under the laptop (look for this forum's Vaio Z disassembly guide).
2. Remove the screws for the DVD/BR drive and slide it out. One of the screws can only be accessed with the drive popped out, so you'll have to use a paper clip to open it. Undo the one ribbon connecting the drive to the computer.
3. Undo any screws holding the SSDs down. Undo any of its ribbons. You have to do this before the motherboard because one ribbon is hidden under another and can't be undone with the SSD in the way.
4. Undo all of the ribbons on the motherboard and unscrew any screws. You should be able to pick the motherboard up, though it will be tethered to the top left corner of your laptop from the cords that go up to the LCD. You can even flip it over.
5. You'll have to fiddle with the fan, but you don't need to remove the heatsink or anything like that. The black plastic surrounding the blade pops right off and can easily be popped right back in. Just examine how the plastic is connected to the golden heat sink and you can see how to slide it off / pop it off. There's black plastic tabs holding it down on each side.

 

Be careful when cleaning the blades. They can easily break to pieces if you use too much force. I think it's safer to use a blower (used in cameras) and alcohol rather than q-tips.

Sent from my Galaxy Note

 

I already broke a few the first couple of times I tried to fix the fan. ^_^;;

 

The commercially available cue tips/cotton buds are too densely packed. Try making your own with a toothpick and some cotton wool. Be very patient - clean one side of one blade at a time.

 

Oh my freakin' gawd.

So I pulled the blade out and squeezed oil into the hole. The laptop is ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY silent now. The fan makes literally NO NOISE when it's not doing anything performance-intensive. When it is, it's a small, small whirling sound. It sounds 300% better than when I first got it! I absolutely cannot believe this - it's just too perfect to be true. EVERYONE should do this if they can reach the fan. What sounded like a dying, grinding fan is now better than when I first got it!

I'm still just so blown away. I'm waiting for something bad to happen because this is just too good to be true.

 

Well done! I am now emboldened to do something about my fan - it is not very noisy, but doesn't blow out enough air.

On a related note, is there some way for me to speed up the fan on demand? My idle CPU temps are around 60 deg C. The ambient temperature is around 30-35 deg C, so that is not as bad as it looks. If Speedfan worked on VAIOs, I could have made a power profile, but that's a no go.

 

If you want to speed it up on idle, you can try change the fan profile to "Performance mode" in Vaio Control Center, though this only makes it louder for me, not really any cooler.

 

Thanks. Almost a 10 degree drop.

 

Seriously?? Did you already repaste your CPU or do anything like that?

 

Glad it worked for you, you may need to revisit it like once a year.
The problem with fans are that the grease they initially put in breaks down over time and becomes useless. I hope the link i sent you was useful.

 

No. Although I have opened the case and cleaned out the dust that had accumulated over the years.

Mind you, these temps are for idle in speed mode. Doing anything (even browsing) brings the temps up again. With the ceiling fan and the air conditioning (I don't have that on all the time) I can't hear the fan anyway. It is different during the winter months.

 

So I'm wondering if you have any photos - is it possible to get to the blades and oil the fan without removing the entire fan assembly?

 

No, I don't think so.

 

Thanks anyway! I'll have to probably follow your steps to re-grease the bearings - or maybe just order a new one and replace the fan altogether. The fan is not turning on at all for me on boot and the computer shuts down in a matter of moments.

 

It was MCF-528PAM05 for my VPCZ1390X. Might be different for you.

Greasing does work, at least as a temporary solution, but once a Sony fan starts having problems, you are in for repairs. Sorry...

 

That's exactly what was happening with mine a year ago. But it's working 100% now. Just try what I said before you try to buy a new one. It's probably fine, just needs to be fixed up.

 

Mine 2010 has been doing the same thing for 8 months already.

Sony should fix the computers.

The fan was not designed properly for this laptop, i have a previous model Z and it also does the same thing.

Its total bs, the fan on ebay is $100

 

Took it to the Sony store and they just replaced the fan free of charge - it runs much smoother now and I'll be sure to clean it frequently and hope that the bearings don't wear out as quickly.