Z11 Fan on High Speed, Laptop Turns Off

It is so embarrassing that I have to keep creating so many topics for my specific laptop issues, but I don't have my warranty anymore and I can't afford to send in my laptop to get fixed. ^_^;; Sorry if I'm annoying anyone with my topics.

Today I opened up my laptop to try to see what was wrong with the fan. For the past few months, the fan sounds like something is inside it or loose - it keeps making this razor/metallic sound when I hold the laptop at a specific angle, like the fan is cutting away at something. Well, today I tried to open the laptop to take the fan apart but ultimately could not figure out how to do it and did not attempt to. About the only thing I did was lift the fan and the chip it's connected to a bit to see if there was anything under it. Then, I took a compressed air can and sprayed the fan itself. I also took the can and sprayed it through the vents on the left side - pointing it in the third vent from the left (near the AC jack) caused the sound to appear. So I kept spraying. After a bit, the sound was gone! So I put the laptop back together, moved it around a bit, and the sound was gone.

Then a new problem arose...

When you turn on the laptop or do anything even slightly intensive, like watching a video, the fan goes to MAX power and then the laptop completely turns off. Did I screw up something with the fan that would cause it to do this? The ironic thing is that my laptop will often wake up from Standby mode in my bag, get beyond super hot, and will keep running. Now it turns off when it's not even warm!

 

What temperatures are reported by HWMonitor or similar application?

 

Sounds like you removed the fan and heatsink and did not apply new thermal grease. Take it apart, wipe every trace of thermal grease from the heatsink, the cpu, and the gpu. Apply fresh grease and reassemble.

 

Well, I did try to take a screenshot of HWMonitor, but the laptop shut off and now Windows won't even start. Tomorrow I'm going to try to run a USB Linux OS to try to recover the data.

Anyways, it looked like the max temperature was 175*F. Would lifting the fan and the circuit board it's attached to just for a little bit for 10 seconds really mess up the grease?

 

^Do not boot it again!, you are going to burn something up. Removing the heatsink IMMEDIATELY destroys the bond of the thermal pads that oem's use. You need to clean and apply new grease. Remember, you just use a tiny amount of grease.

 

I probably burned it out then. The screen turned to snow and went off the last time I turned it on. It still goes all the way to the Windows login screen, but it's black and you can only see the mouse.

What type of grease should I get? I'll go to Fry's now.

 

Just get some thermal compound. Many people swear by arctic silver. The important part is to make sure you totally clean the old stuff from the cpu, the gpu, and the heatsink. Only use a tiny amount of grease, a drop on each the cpu and the gpu.

 

I'm a real n00b, so can you explain where those parts are in the Z11 and where I should specifically put those drops? I'm really paranoid about messing things up now since in trying to fix this laptop I've just made things worse. So I want to make sure I do it right.

Here's a photo of the inside I found on Google (missing some stuff, obviously):
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hu_KIB-Pos0/TJFy3GBwCcI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/ZH8r73dTkjs/P1000513.jpg

 

Can't tell you from that pic but when you remove the heatsink again it should be pretty obvious. 2 chips, each will probably have some gunk on them.

 

But I didn't remove them. I just slightly lifted them up. I probably will not be able to even get under them. Do you know how to remove them?

 

You may not have burned it out, computers shut off like that to protect it and they usually will not turn on again until they cool down.
Try applying Arctic Silver.

 

Yeah but where?

 

Okay, I managed to disassemble most of the laptop. I took a photo, as you can see in the attachment below. The fan and the green circuit board it's connected to are flipped over. Can you guys describe where I put the thermal grease?

 

Triple post.

I applied new thermal grease, but the same problem is still happening. Is it possible that whatever reads the temperature is malfunctioning? If it's in the fan, that might explain the problem since it sounded like something was broken in it before. Anyone know?

 

Quadruple post.

Something else seems to be going on here. I put my finger over the metal plate on top of the processor and it is HOT and heats up FAST. I don't think the fan or thermometer is broken - something is causing the processor/GPU to heat up to crazy levels (or at least I think it's crazy - the heat could be normal?). The laptop shuts off as soon as it gets hot to the touch, so I think all of the safety functions are working properly. Any ideas on how to determine what's causing the heat? This could save me from laying down 3 grand for a new Z.

 

Wrong: Another Bad Thermal Paste Case, Acer is at fault - YouTube

Right: I replaced the Thermal Paste on the Acer correctly - YouTube

Get some proper thermal paste, apply it very thin & use a razor blade to spread over the CPU surface. Clean heatsink and CPU side thoroughly. Tighten screws well after heatsink placement. Recheck by viewing the mainboard from the side with a flashlight if the CPU surface really touches the heatsink on the full area.

Upload more detailed pictures, we can help better then.

 

I'm pretty sure I did it right, but I'll do it again tonight when I get home.

The thing that is bothering me right now is that I didn't touch the actual CPU or anything when I opened the laptop. I think you guys misinterpreted what I said earlier about lifting the fan and green chip up. I never removed the heat sink from the CPU or GPU, I merely lifted the entire peace up a bit out of the unit to see what was under them (the green circuit board) - which of course was just some foil and the plastic laptop bottom. Even after taking the heat sink off following your guys' suggestion (again, which I had never done) and replacing it with the new paste (which I'm sure I did right), the heat problem is still there. So what I'm saying is that I think something else is wrong with the laptop. And I want to know what other problems you guys could think is causing this.

 

Used the thermal paste again. No luck. It's still overheating and shutting off. Any ideas on what else could be causing it?

EDIT: Hm, actually, maybe the chips are supposed to be that hot. After all, I have never touched them before, so how would I know if they are too hot or at just a regular temperature? I know this though: when the fan was on max speed (right before shutting off the laptop), the air coming out of it was nowhere near as hot as it has been at times in the past when I'm doing video rendering or something similar. So let's just say the chips are fine for now.

Which means we're back to my original theory. Could something be wrong with the fan? There was something rattling around in there before, and after spraying the hell out of the fan by pointing a compressed air can toward the outside vent, the sound went away. Is it possible that was the thermometer hanging or something, and then I just completely broke it by spraying the inside of the fan? And now, since the thermometer may not be working, it is running at max speed and then shutting itself off to protect itself since it doesn't know how hot things are?

Is it possible to somehow trick the system into thinking it's at a low temperature to test my theory? Like, say, rewire the four cords going into the fan to run the fan at max speed but disable the thermometer or make it think the temperature is low? If that could work, and the laptop turns on and starts running normally again, then we know all of this is being caused by a malfunctioning thermometer.

What do you guys think? Please help!

 

I'm no expert on this, but if the heat sink is getting very hot, and the fan is running but is not blowing out hot air, then it sounds like there is a physical problem with the fan. To check whether the system is measuring the temperature correctly, you could use a temperature monitoring program like HWMonitor, if your PC boots up long enough for you to do that.

 

DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

It turns out you CAN detach the plastic fan from the metal heat sink. When I did, nothing appeared odd - the fan looked completely fine, spare a loose blade which I just pulled off. Then, I popped it back into place... and noticed this little gold tab sticking out of the fan. It turns out the tab is supposed to touch a gold piece on the circuit board. Apparently when I lifted up the fan/circuit board a few days ago, I must have separated the two from each other. So all in all, the fan is now working properly and the laptop isn't turning off!

After taking the Z apart so many times now, I feel like I am an expert with it! lol.

Now I just need to figure out my SSD issue and then my laptop is back to normal.

 

Good you found out. Sad tho, since we did not have any opportunity to identify that issue for you without pics.

 

I'm having the exact same problem:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...ter-windows-startup-vaio-z11.html#post7953552

can you please point out the gold tab you are referring to?
is it on the bottom?

or top?

 

Hey what tab are you talking about???

 

still trying to figure this out..