The cooling fan in my Lenovo R61i has been getting noisy for the past few weeks. As a no-frills business laptop, it has served me very well and I would not hesitate to buy another Lenovo machine. However, I have had the fan, hinges, and CD drive replaced under the 3-year warranty and now that has expired I have to maintain the computer myself.
New cooling fan assemblies are available via eBay, but I thought I’d try cleaning and lubricating the fan before changing the unit. If you want to do this yourself, you will need screwdrivers, compressed air, and some thermal grease to reseat the CPU and GPU heat sinks. You’ll also need a can of spray lubricant (I used WD40) and tube to direct the spray. I suggest that you use a small container to keep the screws and clips as you remove them. I used two saucers to keep the heat sink screws separate from the other fixings.
Disassembly of the laptop wasn’t too difficult. After removing the laptop battery, I removed all screws labeled with a keyboard icon. This allowed me to disengage the wrist rest and keyboard. Removal of the keyboard bezel was a little less obvious; this was held in place with clips and screws, including some positioned inside the battery compartment. When all screws are removed and the clips released, the bezel comes out with ease, so don’t try forcing it! I found it easier to remove the bezel with the laptop screen open almost to its full extent.
Read the service manual for detailed instructions, but I found most of the disassembly to be intuitive. I had to disconnect some cables, including the keyboard, wireless antenna, speakers, and cooling fan. The integrated fan and heat sink came out easily and I wiped away the old grease with a clean tissue. I didn’t think it necessary to use any special solvent.
The fan and inside of the computer had collected a large amount of dust. I blasted most of this away with the compressed air, hooking out fluff balls with the tip of a miniature screwdriver. I think a wooden tooth pick and small soft brush – the type used for cleaning cameras – would have been useful.
After clearing the dust, I carefully sprayed a very small amount of lubricant towards the shaft of the fan and wiped away any excess. It was not possible to view or access the bearing itself, and some spray inevitably went onto the fan circuitry.
I reseated the heat sink with some budget thermal grease and then reassembled the computer. Incidentally, I bought two tiny syringes of grease (the smallest quantity I could find) but even this was much more than I needed. It cost me about a pound.
The fan is now running very smoothly and I’m hopeful it will continue working until I purchase a new laptop computer. Overall, I would rate the exercise as a big success.
Thank you, this was very helpful! The noise disappeared and temps came down by 10°C. :)
Great — I’m glad it worked for you. It has been five months now since I lubricated the fan and it is still running quietly. I hope you have as much success with yours.