[ltp] Fan or fan assembly replacement for T61

[tomtom at tutanota.com]

Hi Stefan,

I just recently went through the exact same issue.
I have a T61 with a tall screen (4:3) and just the normal Intel on board graphics. Screen sizes seem to make a difference for the shape of the heat sink, and for the models with nVIDIA graphics chips the heat sink also seems to be different from the ones with Intel graphics. At least that's the result of my research.

I ended up ordering a "fan assembly" because I couldn't find much information about just replacing the fan - accidentally I ordered one with the wrong shape of heatsink, so I had to go through the process anyways...

It was easier than I thought. At least in my case, there was no soldering necessary. Basically, the fan is held in the heatsink by little metal clips that you can carefully bend back, and by some tape, in my case some silver colored metal tape, which is used on the sides of the air in and outlet.

In my case, the old tape was hard to remove in one piece, but since I had a ordered a whole fan assembly, I could use the tape from that for reassembly.

You will need new heat conductor paste anyways, because you have to take the heat sink out for this process. As far as my research went, if you have an extra nVIDIA graphics chip, there is no conductor paste but a silicon conductor pad, so be aware of this (while it can be that you don't even have to replace it.)

I obviously cannot guarantee you that all the fans on the market fit all the heatsinks, but to me what I saw seemed all to have the same shape.

In my case, those little metal clips of the heat sink that are holding the fan were not exactly in the same places on the new one, but that made no difference for the transplantation.

If you need more information, feel free to ask. I can also send you (directly, not to the list) some pictures and a link to what I found was a good tutorial video (while it is only about replacing the whole assembly), and if you want also the exact product I bought.

Hope it all works well,
have a nice Day,
Tom



11. Aug. 2020, 05:26 von monnier at iro.umontreal.ca:

> Hi,
>
> My T61's fan is making weird noises.  I tried to clean it but that
> doesn't seem to help.  I'm in the process of ordering a replacement fan
> but am wondering: in the hardware maintenance manual I see mention of
> a "fan assembly" with FRUs 42W2821 or 42W2820, which seems to combine
> both the fan and some heatpipes; but what I find on sale are fans which
> seem to be just fans, and they don't advertize those FRUs but instead
> FRUs 42W2460, 42W2461, 42W2462, and 42W2823.
>
> Does anyone here have experience replacing "just the fan" of a T61?
> Is it easy or does it require extra work to take apart the "fan
> assembly" and put it back together (maybe with soldering?)?
>
> Another issue is that they're often very vague about which models of T61
> they are supposed to fit (and there's a fairly wide variety, between the
> 14.1" tallscreen, the 14" widescreen, the 15", and also the "p" and "non
> p" variants).  Do all those T61 variants accept the same fan?
>
>
> Stefan
>
> -- 
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
> http://mailman.linux-thinkpad.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-thinkpad
>
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