Hello all My Dell Studio 1555 I use for web browsing has developed a buzzing coming from its exhaust fan as if its about to give up the ghost. Has anyone had any experience replacing fans on a laptop? Is it straight forward? Hopefully if anything I would like to get a better fan as the current one has always been rubbish (loud and poor at keeping the laptop cool when doing anything under load or using the full processor speed) thanks for any advice full spec : Operating System MS Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit SP1 CPU Intel Pentium T4200 @ 2.00GHz 44 °C Penryn 45nm Technology RAM 4.0GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (6-6-6-18) Motherboard Dell Inc. 0C234M (U2E1) 53 °C Graphics Generic PnP Monitor (1366x768@60Hz) ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500/5100 Series Hard Drives 313GB Hitachi Hitachi HTS545032B9A300 ATA Device (SATA) 41 °C Optical Drives HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GA10N ATA Device
They can be replaced tho its usually a full strip apart job. Have you tried a good blow out with compressed air first? Maybe just a build up of dust on the fan blades.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/studio1555/en/sm/fan.htm#wp1179839 Looks straight forward but it'll take a bit of effort just to get to the fan. Would definitely give it a go with compressed air first like srgtherasta suggested if you haven't done so already.
Had the same thing happen to my Studio 1735. Ended up pulling the mobo and hitting the fan bearing with some 80+ year old Singer oil I had kicking around. Worked a treat, no buzz for a good 6 months now. I thought it might have been dust too but nope, no oil left in the bearing.
I used compressed air while the laptop was off and now the fan is not working at all. I'm running cpu temps in the 80's and motherboard temps in the 90's Where can I get a replacement fan?
Tried taking it apart to get to the fan, 4 screws are impossible to get off. I've stripped the thread on 2 of them. Game over... gonna try to put it back together edit: Put back together, fan still dead but laptop working. Not sure what to do now apart from backup my data and pray
As said above do not use it without a working fan, take it to a repair shop, see what they can do about the stripped screws.
thanks srgtherasta, I used it last night just for browsing the web with the cpu clocked at 1.1Ghz and it didn't go above 60c on the mobo or cpu. As soon as the cpu has to do anything stressful it cooks. Yeah repair shop seems to be my only way now, or ill bin it and buy a new one when I have the cash
Tried 2 different online chats with dell to see if they offer the fan; zero help. Called them up, waited until I was put through to an advisor. She asked for the serial number of the laptop ("so we can identify it") despite me telling her the model. I guess its for warranty info. They couldn't/wouldn't go any further until I supplied that info. Asked if I could email someone but, again, she said the serial number is mandatory in all forms of contact..... As a last resort there are some on ebay for about a tenner?
This is precisely the reason why if you don't know what you're doing in the first place, it's best to take it straight to a professional who does know and have them fix it instead of trying to do it yourself and messing something up or breaking something The sad thing is that I notice more and more threads popping up here in tech Support asking questions along the lines of "please tell me how to fix this thing I have no experience or training working on so I don't have to take it to the people who actually know how to fix these things and won't break it trying to fix it with limited knowledge and incorrect tools". Sigh
Big thanks Gould for the effort +rep Unicorn If I took your stance on things I would never have started building computers 8 years ago. I would have been too scared to touch anything as "I don't know what I'm doing" This laptop is the first one I've owned out of 3 to ever have a problem and considering the amount of times its been dropped and/or stood on I'm amazed it survived this long. I've learnt a lot taking it apart and next time I open one up I will have a much better idea what to expect inside. You say people are making threads in tech support saying they want to know how to fix something despite not having experience!? Well I don't have the time to go to a laptop repair course or the school for unscrewing ridiculously tight screws. The only way I see of getting the experience you consider necessary is by finding out the hard way. The hard way this time might have cost me a fixable laptop but the hard way has saved me tons in the past, especially when it comes to computers and will continue to save me time and money. Thanks for the totally unhelpful reply.
You're more than welcome for the "totally unhelpful" reply, but my point was not that nobody should ask for help or guidance, not even that nobody should learn by doing... All I'm saying is that if the boiler in my house breaks down I call a heating engineer to come and fix it, because whilst I know a little about them and have done electrical work on one before, I'm not qualified or well enough educated on how they work to go about fixing one. You may well have been building computers for 8 years but laptops are a completely different device to a desktop computer. It's a mobile electronic device and whilst it's built from components that have the same names as desktop PC components, it's not the same. I mean, you started a thread about a laptop that had a noisy fan, and had to be told that changing/servicing it required stripping the laptop down, then when you tried stripping the thing down to get at the fan you stripped some screw heads. I'm sure I'm not the only one sitting with my head in my hands thinking you'd have been better getting someone who services laptops to look at it and learned on something that was a little more terminal No matter what way I put it, you're going to take it thick so I'm just not going to try putting it in kinder words any more. For the record, the screws you were trying to remove were torqued into the laptop using an electric torquing driver at the Dell factory and require the same or a similar tool to remove, and they're thread locked with Loctite glue as well, which you have to apply enough force on to break the seal. But what do I know, I'm just an engineer.
Top marks for what is still a useless and smarmy post there Unicorn. You've never made a single mistake in your time have you? No problem
I rest my case. And again for the record, of course I've made plenty of mistakes and learned from them. But I've definitely never tried to fix a device that falls under European Conformity regulations without proper training and experience, so I'm a better person by default. How's that for smarmy? I'm here all week.
Thanks for the info. I did use a lot of force and I have and used all the tools mentioned here in several different sizes. Alas I still stripped 2 screw heads. Aside from your better person defaults I would expect your reaction from the dell technical support forum not a forum dedicated to modding and custom building computers from component parts. Never mind. It was cheap, may still be fixable and I've learned plenty about taking apart a laptop which is invaluable
I just wanted to update for anyone that finds this thread through google with the same problem. I have had some time off recently due to a family bereavement and I decided to buy a replacement fan and have another go. I found a complete fan and heatsink on ebay for £6 which arrived this morning. I went to town taking the laptop apart again and came to the screw heads I striped. 2 of them I managed to get out myself with a star shaped driver, the last 1 wouldn't budge. I popped along to the local hardware store and it took all of 2 minutes for the guy behind the counter to get it out and then refused any money for doing so as 'it was nothing'. I get back home and finish taking apart the laptop as per the Dell service manual. Give everything a thorough dust and clean. New fan installed on the heatsink. Fresh Arctic Silver 5 applied. Put everything back together with a couple of fresh screws and hey presto, a fully working Dell Studio 1555 that is cooler than ever with a quieter fan... Only took a year to get round to it Thanks again for those that helped dizzi
