Fan on Dell latitude starts then stops and still boots

[jagerhunter]

My old Dell Latitude E6400 has been working fine recently but now the fan has stopped working. The fan spins for a few seconds at startup and the will not spin any more causing the co.puter to overheat and turn off. I loosend the heatsink on the cpu and I think the computer thought it was overheating because it then ran at a high speed but eventually turned off. I changed ram reseated everything and nothing seems to work. The only problem I can think of is that a sensor has broken that is for the cpu temp. Any help is appreciated.

 

[huge217]

Contact dell or the store you bought it from

 

[masonmouse]

If you loosened the heatsink, it may not be making good contact with the processor anymore. You'll most likely want to remove the heatsink again, clean it and the top of the CPU well then apply some thermal paste and put it all back together. Of course if the fan doesn't come on at all anymore, that won't help. Does it spin when you first turn it on every time? That's a normal test for the fan just to make sure it's working. If it spins up but then never comes on again, you may be right about a sensor issue. Another thing you can try is to go to http/support.dell.com and put in your service tag to see if there's a BIOS update. That may help with any issues the firmware might be having.

I'm using a Latitude D630 right now which is almost identical to your laptop. It's a good system and should have plenty of life left in it still.

 

[jagerhunter]

I tried updating the bios and the fan still refuses to work. If I take out the cpu the fan will continually spin (as a test or something) so I know it definitely works but it still refuses to cool the computer in use. I have not tried new thermal paste.