How to Repair the Cooling Fan of a Laptop or Notebook

Do you need to clean, change or fix the cooling fan of a laptop or notebook? Or are you looking for "improved" cooling techniques? Here are links to do-it-yourself instructions to recover from sudden shut down problems caused by thermal issues, to clean the ventilator and heatsink. If you have written a free guide yourself (or if you know of a tutorial not linked here), please submit a new entry.

Acer Aspire 1603	How to remove dust, which is blocking the air intakes and the fan, includes take apart pictures.
Acer Aspire 1642	This very detailed guide explains and illustrates how to access and replace the optical drive (CD), to clean the fan and upgrade the memory (RAM) [PDF].
Acer TravelMate 740	How to clean the CPU fan, a disassembly picture gallery.
Advent 6520	Detailed instructions for the replacement of the hard drive. How to clean the fan to prevent overheating.
Apple PowerBook G3 Lombard	Fixing a broken fan by putting it into a PCMCIA card.
ASUS A4740KBP	The GPU gets really hot if you play games. The hotter it gets, the more cooling it needs. This is where the GPU/chipset fan kicks in, and wow, it sure is noisy! A simple solution is to take out your Dremel and file down the small net that covers the air tunnel. The fan stays off longer now, and air flow is much better.
ASUS myNote	Fan surgery: replacing a dead fan with a new one.
ASUS Z71V (Z71A)	Improving the cooling by adding some thermal paste to the heatpipe.
Averatec AV6200	Laptop deconstruction: this is a quick guide on taking apart the laptop almost completely. How to replace a broken RJ45 ethernet connector plug. Cleaning the heatsink and applying fresh thermal paste.
DELL Inspiron 5100	How to clean and replace the heatsink to fix a thermal problem which caused unexpected shutoffs.
DELL Inspiron 5160	How to take apart the case and replace a dead heat sink / fan (cooling unit).
DELL Latitude D600	The case of an overheated laptop: this guide explains how to fix a sudden shutdown and overheating problem by taking apart the laptop and removing the dust from the heatsink and fan.
DELL SpeedStep 250N	Solving laptop random shut downs. Scrape off all the crappy thermal strip material from the CPU fan and then clean it thoroughly so no sticky residue remained. Now cover the area on the CPU fan where it meets the CPU with thermal conductive paste from the local Radio Shack.
COMPAQ Armada 1750	Fan repair and RAM update.
COMPAQ TC1100	Major invasive operation: dissection and fan replacement.
ECS G900	Opening the case and cleaning the fan.
Fujitsu-Siemens LifeBook N series	A tutorial for the reduction of temperature in your laptop. It involves three main steps and about $20 worth of material. This instructions will help especially if your laptop keeps shutting down unexpectedly. It explains how to determine that temperature is causing the problem actually. It shows how to take apart the beast, how to remove dust from the heatsink and the vent and how to applicate thermal compound to the processor.
HP Pavilion N5190	Shared knowledge: a take apart picture gallery and disassembly guide. Cleaning the fan from dirt and remounting the CPU using thermal conductive paste. Upgrading the hard drive. Replacement of CD/DVD, LCD video driver board and BIOS battery. Fixing a broken power adapter jack.
HP Pavilion ZE 5400EA	A complete disassembly with four objectives: clean fans and exhaust airways of dust to improve air flow and cooling - investigate poor wireless performance - investigate faulty power switch - investigate broken floppy drive.
HP Pavilion ZV 5000	Cleaning Your Laptop Cooling System: this laptop uses two heat pipes with heat sinks and two fans to cool the processor. Through use, those heat sinks and pipes it collects quite a bit of dust reducing the machine's cooling capacity.
IBM ThinkPad R50p	Investigation of a broken fan behaviour (in German).
IBM ThinkPad T4x	Let's say you turn the notebook on but all you get is a black screen with a "Fan error" message. What could be wrong?
IBM ThinkPad T43p	How to reduce fan noise: a homemade cooling system (not very professional but it works) using arctic silver and an aluminium plate for the northbridge, which bounds both chipsets to the copper cooling system by using aluminium sheets (like for cooking).
IBM ThinkPad T43p	A cooling system: this notebook has a real problem with the fan noise and cooling in general. The fan needs to be always on as the cooling system is not very sophisticated. Here is a description of the cooling system improvements using some small cooper sheets (0.7mm thick).
IBM ThinkPad X31	Elective Thinkpad surgery: how to replace a broken fan.
Medion MD5400	Cleaning the cooling fan. Jumper settings to reduce the CPU core voltage, to gain longer battery uptime (in German).
Samsung X10	A short guide to notebook fan cleaning (in German).
Samsung X20	Take apart and fan cleaning thread with dissection pictures.
Sony VAIO PCG-F807K	Cleaning/replacing the cooling fan.
Sony VAIO PCG-GRT100	Cleaning the fan cooler. A short tutorial with take apart pictures.
Sony VAIO PCG-GRT260G	How to clean the dust from an overheating notebook. The ductwork and heat sinks of this machine are easily clogged with dust, which severely limits its efficiency. It leads to very noisy fan levels, ultimately resulting in spontaneous shutdowns as the internal temperatures begin to exceed critical levels. Before cleaning, the fan would run continuously one step below full speed. After removing the dust, it is barely audible.
Sony VAIO PCG-GRZ630	How to disassembly the notebook and clean the cooling system to avoid overheating.
Sony VAIO VGN-FS315E	Like many VAIOs, this one overheated rapidly, often cutting out when it got too hot. These are the steps to clean the fans to prevent overheating.
Sotec 3120	Fan noise repair instructions [PPS].
Toshiba Portege A100	How to remove the system board and replace CPU fan.
Toshiba Portege M400	Fan hack: how to solve the fan noise issue by removing the fan.
Toshiba Qosmio G25	Opening up the notebook case and replace cooling fans. This guide also explains how to access the wireless card, TV tuner and DVD drive.
Toshiba Satellite 1955-S805	Cleaning guide for the CPU heatsink, or how to get rid of a common shutdown problem.
Toshiba Toshiba Satellite 2410	This tutorial describes all the tricks you need to know to get the laptop fan replaced, complete with disassembly pictures (in German).
Toshiba Satellite A35	If your laptop works fine for 10-15 minutes and then suddenly shuts down without any reason, most likely it experiences an overheating problem. Follow these steps to remove and clean the CPU cooling fan/heatsink and fix an overheating problem.
Toshiba Satellite A60	How to clean a dust-ridden heatsink, to cure a laptop which was overheating and turning itself off.
Toshiba Satellite P10	Cleaning the heatsink from dust prevents the laptop to overheat and to shutdown at random. This cures some fan noise, too (in German).
Toshiba Satellite P30	Adventures in computer maintenance: how to take apart the notebook and remove dust from the fan and cooling module.
Toshiba Satellite X205	How to take apart the laptop and remove the motherboard. You can use this guide to remove the VGA board and clean fans and heat sinks.
Toshiba Tecra S1	This guide explains how to remove the system board from the notebook. It will also illustrate how you can disassemble the notebook and remove, replace or clean the following parts: battery, hard drive, modem card, memory module, Wi-Fi card, CPU, heatsink, fan, keyboard, touchpad, dvd-rom, top cover, display assembly, speakers.
N.N.	Picture gallery demonstrating how a ball of dust bins has blocked the laptop fan (in German).

Coolers and Watercooling for Laptops

DIY Laptop Cooler	A plexiglass constructed notebook cooler equiped with spiffy lighted fans for some trippy late night surfing/gaming safari's.
The Waldic	Introducing the Waldic (water & air laptop direct input cooler). This device is a dual mode home made laptop cooler. It was made for the purpose of watching movies without being disturbed by the annoying fan.
Heat Extractor	Want your own customized heat extractor? So what is this heat extractor really? Well it's a device designed to make your laptop cool - in every meaning of the word. It will also make the fan obsolete and therefore completely silent.