Laptop fan is whirring - what are temporary fixes?

[Emiel_1]

So recently my laptop fan has started to make a strange whirring or grinding sound, and when the fan starts spinning fast, the laptop vibrates.

I've been reading online that it could be the ball bearings are broken, or something else, but that in any case the fan will probably need to be replaced.

The thing is, I'm in a developing country where I do not have access to any person or place that might be able to do this for me - as my laptop is a custom build by PC Specialist, and they are unable to ship a replacement to this country.

I will return to my home country in 2 months and will definitely get the work done, but in the meantime I still need to be able to use my laptop. So I have two questions:

1. Is there potential that continuing to allow the fan to run can cause permanent damage to my laptop? Am I being a fool for even switching it on in this condition?

2. If it's not too bad to run it, is there anything I can do to alleviate the issue? I've bought a cooling pad, I hoped that by keeping the laptop cool the fan would not need to run so often, but it still seems to come on regularly. IS there anything else I can try? Would it be reckless to remove the internal fan and rely on the cooling pad alone?

Thanks for any help

 

[zer0c00l587]

Its possible the fan is dirty, i recently fixed a lenovo laptop were the fan completely stopped working, on opening the laptop i found the fan unable to turn when i tried to move the blades with my finger, after a thorough but careful cleaning the fan is working fine. If you gonna attempt to remove the fan and rely on a cooler you might as well clean it and any other areas which are in easy reach that may be caked up with dust. A cooler will provide passive cooling mostly, active cooling will depend how many air vents are underneath the laptop where the cooler can blow directly into those vents. I have used a cooler on my old fujitsu - siemens laptop, but i did remove the back panel and carefully placed on the cooler so that no parts actually touched the cooler itself, this did result the laptop's fan spinning less and never reaching its maximum rpm. You may try this method only if the fan does need replacing.

 

[jarotech]

Hi, to be sure, you can monitor the temperature of the components with a program, this way if it's not too high, you know it's alright.

@Zer0c00l587 nice avatar.

 

[zer0c00l587]

Hi, to be sure, you can monitor the temperature of the components with a program, this way if it's not too high, you know it's alright.

@Zer0c00l587 nice avatar.

Thanks.