My 4 year-old vaio has been slowly killing itself with heat for the past 6 months and making awful grinding noises and I finally decided to see what I could do about it so I took the back off to clean the fan out and see if I could move the fan's power lead a bit (assumed it was that being dragged into the fan, hence the grinding). Managed to get a little bit of slack on the power cables and stick it to the case, and clean the fan. When I booted it up, bliss! No noise. However it appears all I've managed to do is stop the fan working completely. I can't quite work out what I've done though, I've gone back in and tried wiggling what I assume is the fan header on the motherboard - can't quite tell where the cable goes but I assume it doubles back on itself to this header next to the fan. Or maybe in trying to pull a little slack on the cable I've actually pulled the power lead out of the fan itself. Any ideas if this is an easy fix or whether I'm going to have to take the whole thing to pieces.
I suspect the best way would be to take it to bits and see what's what. Keep guessing probably won't get you anywhere.
Was hoping I wouldnt have to but I suppose that is the best option. Was hoping someone who actually knows their way around the inside of a vaio could swoop to my rescue and tell me what on earth i'm looking for in here. edit: looking at it, there is no way I can actually get to the fan without taking it down to its absolute bare parts:
Fixed the sodding thing! A little bit of brute force and igorance and the fan started spinning again. Apparently I hadn't disconnected it, I'd just blown a load of dust into the mechanism rather than out, so it got stuck. Still thinking about replacing it though
My GF has the SZ and her fan is making a horible noise from boot. sounds like the fan is slightly out of place. I havent bothered looking at it yet but if you do find a replacement please post as i might do the same. THanks
Well for heaven's sake - if you've taken it to pieces once, then replace the fan BEFORE re-assembling it if you can, otherwise you'll have to dismantle it again and run the risk of problems from taking it apart!
I think the general consensus around SZ owners is that once the fan starts to make a noise, you either live with it or get rid of the laptop. The fan is near impossible to actually get out without disassembling the entire laptop (not just stripping panels off - literally taking everything out of the case). You could always try oiling the fan. I think what has happened with mine is i've blown dust further into the mechanism and jammed it up. That and I think the lead is still being caught in the fan
I think you misunderstood. With the vaio, you can see the fan to clean it from a distance but a whole lot more disassembling is required to actually get the thing out, the heatsink and heat pipe has to come off for a start, and I'm fairly certain to get it out of the case, the keyboard, touchpad, and then motherboard have to come out to actually get it out to replace.
Oiling a fan on a laptop like your sony is not a good idea. The oil will trap dust/dirt faster than it did before, and blowing it out won't get the crud out after that. I would run up ebay and just get another fan.
its not to big a deal changing the fans sz fans are not to bad to change a complete system strip down is only 15-20 mins, and you can get teh fans here http://laptopfans.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=3 i have done a lot of these in the past, the fans never seem to last much more than a year as they as special low profile jobs, and have to push a lot of air through them. they last a lot longer and stay quiet if you have the patience to clean them out properly every 3-4 months worth replacing the fan with such an expensive machine, they bring £4-600 second user on ebay, some in nice conditon a lot more so worth the time
Sorry to beat a dead horse here. Eliminos, it seems that you and I have that same laptop and that you had the same problem that I have. What kind of brute force and ignorance revived the fan? Thanks
