Solved! Is it OK if I ran my computer without a fan for 15 seconds?

[slhardware]

My ThinkPad laptop's fan died and I installed a replacement fan. When I turned on the laptop, it said "Fan Error", indicating something was wrong with the replacement fan. But I could still feel air coming out of the vent, so I pressed Esc to tell it to continue booting up.

Then maybe 15 seconds later, I put my hand next to the vent again and didn't feel any air coming out anymore. I panicked and decided to do a hard power off. I'm not sure if I smelled anything burning - I could have been imagining things.

Is there any chance I could have damaged the CPU by running it without a fan for 15 seconds? This is a 2006 era CPU.

I'll have to wait about a week to get another replacement fan before I can find out. Just want to know what you guys think right now.

 

[ThatVietGuy]

It's probably fine, but you never know.

I would just prepare for the worst, just in case.

 

[philipew]

My ThinkPad laptop's fan died and I installed a replacement fan. When I turned on the laptop, it said "Fan Error", indicating something was wrong with the replacement fan. But I could still feel air coming out of the vent, so I pressed Esc to tell it to continue booting up.

Then maybe 15 seconds later, I put my hand next to the vent again and didn't feel any air coming out anymore. I panicked and decided to do a hard power off. I'm not sure if I smelled anything burning - I could have been imagining things.

Is there any chance I could have damaged the CPU by running it without a fan for 15 seconds? This is a 2006 era CPU.

I'll have to wait about a week to get another replacement fan before I can find out. Just want to know what you guys think right now.

Not a problem, I did the same for over one minute... runs perfectly still.

 

[DSzymborski]

I think you're probably fine. You still had a heatsink.

 

[slhardware]

I saw a post on another forum from a fellow ThinkPad user who said he has configured his laptop to not run the fan at all. Not only that, but they say Intel CPUs will auto shut off if they go over 100 C so there shouldn't be any damage if they heat up. So I tried booting up my computer again without the fan and everything is fine, I left it on all day and the CPU temperature stayed in the 45-55 C range.

 

[DSzymborski]

I saw a post on another forum from a fellow ThinkPad user who said he has configured his laptop to not run the fan at all. Not only that, but they say Intel CPUs will auto shut off if they go over 100 C so there shouldn't be any damage if they heat up. So I tried booting up my computer again without the fan and everything is fine, I left it on all day and the CPU temperature stayed in the 45-55 C range.

True, but cars also have airbags to protect in the case of accident, but I try not to test it out if I can! I believe you're OK as long as you have a heatsink. Where people get into trouble fast is when they're running it with no cooler and that *can* mess up a CPU extremely quickly.