Broken fan??

[HuntyBighead]

Hey guys, so basically my laptop (Packard Bell EasyNote TJ61) has been getting very hot recently and has overheated a few times when put under strenuous processing i.e playing games. The temperature is around 60 degrees centigrade upon turning on and will easily reach 95 by 2 hours of playing a game. I've looked online and found little regarding my laptop but I did find that it is known to run at a high temperature anyway.

I was wondering whether or not I should take it apart myself (have tried twice before but failed to remove the touchpad buttons above keyboard) and have a look/sort the fan out or should I take it to a proper PC place where it will be done properly (although charged an extortionate price for the job) and if so how much I would be looking at paying to sort out a new fan or whatever (£'s). Thanks

 

[buwish]

95C is way too hot for a laptop, so no wonder it has been shutting itself down under strain. It could very well be a bad fan. In comparison to the past, can you hear any fans turning on? If you want to try taking it apart yourself again, have a look at the disassembly guide at the top of the forum here for additional support. The fan itself should be pretty cheap, but at the same time, the CPU heatsink could need to be reseated as well. So if you aren't comfortable attempting such things, I'd go ahead and bring it into a repair shop to play it safe.

 

[spidy]

How old is the unit? having a shop repair/replace a fan will run several hundred dollars more than likely, most of which is labor charges.

if the unit isn't that new, probably not worth having it repaired, try it yourself. if you fail, just buy a new one.

if it's newer, then it's probably worth getting fixed properly and paying for it to be done.

 

[HuntyBighead]

It is just over a year old and as I currently have nowhere near that kind of money I guess I'll just be leaving it It's ok if I am simply doing work or browsing the internet or suchlike so I guess it will have to do. Thanks for the help anyway

 

[buwish]

If you want to give it a go, go for it. Just remember to take your time so that you do not inadvertently pull a vital wire or something link that. In regard to re-seating the heat sink, get yourself a tube of arctic silver, apply a little dab and you'll be good to go. If it isn't the fan, I suspect that the thermal paste may be worn out, hence why the heat sink may need to be reseated.

 

[HuntyBighead]

Ok, I guess it would be worth a shot. Would there be any way to find whether it is in fact broken or it is just the heat sink as you said before I actually took it apart? You said about the noise of the fan but it seems to sound near enough the same as when it was brand new.

 

[spidy]

If you don't hear any funny grinding noises, it's not likely to be the fan.

First try and blow out dust w/ a can of air, maybe it's just clogged? otherwise download a program to check fan speeds for you (like Speedfan). if the fan is spinning fast enough then it's not the fan. probably heatsink like buwish is saying.

 

[HuntyBighead]

I already have speedfan and it doesn't show any speed, all fan RPM's are 0.

 

[spidy]

Does it sound like any fans are spinning? If not, then the fan would be the most likely problem!

 

[buwish]

Well, keep in mind that speedfan sometimes isn't able to detect some fans, depending on the brand. I have speedfan on my toshiba laptop, but it will not detect those fans, even though I know they are running. You can see if the fans are running in the BIOS though.