advice for replacing broken fan in laptop

[TPowes]

Hello everyone,

I recently cleaned all the dust out of my laptop and in the process managed to drop the plastic fan which I had taken out to clean, breaking one of the blades. I've looked on several threads and have decided not to attempt to fix the fan, but instead to just buy a new one to decrease the risk of anything going wrong.

My question is simple (I think) is it better to replace the whole fan unit with a new one, or just take the plastic fan out of a new one and slot it into the old fan unit? Taking into account the benefits, if there are any, of having a new unit and the difficulty of installation. I don't believe it is possible to just buy the plastic fan component on its own.

The fan is for the gpu I believe, and the sku is 6-31-x720s -101. It's for a laptop I bought back in early 2014, so it's getting on a bit but still runs very well.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[webworkings]

You are so better off with a new complete unit. I say this because not only is it a bit of a pain to do it the other way, then you also risk the older parts not being compatible (even if they claim they are) as well as them breaking down long before the fan itself does, leaving you doing another repair/replacement. On top of this a new fan will have a warranty for the whole thing, not just part. Also The new fan, depending on the one you get, may be better at cooling the system than the old one.

Do, though, make sure that you also replace the thermal paste when you do the replacement.