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Laptop Screaming Fan Syndrome

April 3, 2008 by Rob Bazinet

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My current laptop I use most of the day either in my home office or on the road is a Dell Latitude D820. I have had it about a year and half with the exception of the last month or so I have been very happy with it.

The last month the fan has been getting louder and louder to the point I almost bought a new Lenovo Thinkpad T61 but it sounded a bit irrational, clear evidence of how crazy it has been making me. The fan is running at maximum speed most of time and almost screaming.  I was at one of my clients this week and people even commented how loud it was and asking if that annoying sound was my laptop.  Embarrassingly enough, I had to admit that it certain was my laptop.

I started searching the Internet a bit and found others who had the same problem in both the same and different Latitude models.  I also decided to check out the Dell Support Site to see if any problems like this had been reported.  It turns out there is a new BIOS version, A07, which addressed the problem because the quiet mode of the laptop could not be set correctly.  Unfortunately, I already had version A07 of the BIOS installed.

D820

There were a few forum posts I came across that shed some light on the solution; cleaning the fan.  It had never dawned on me that this would be a problem.  One bit of information was on Devshed and made me think a bit about how and where I use my laptop.

My work environment is either the home office or a client and it’s never dusty.   I figured it was worth a shot to clean the fan.  I grabbed my trusty can of compressed air and, while the system was still running, blew the air into as many different angles as I could.  I was surprised to see the amount of dust coming out of the fan.

Once I was done the fan took about 2 minutes to slow down and become extremely quiet.  I would never have guessed the solution would be so simple.  One gentleman takes his D600 apart once every 6 months and cleans the fan and heat sink.

I think I will have to start making this as part of my system maintenance routine to keep my fan quiet and my clients happy.

Technorati Tags: Dell,Latitude,D820,Fan Noise

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Comments

  1. bookmark technology story says

    August 25, 2009 at 1:12 am

    I never cleaned a fan and heat sink before. However, I think I should do that sometime or my laptop will be gone too soon. Thanks.

  2. bookmark technology story says

    August 25, 2009 at 1:12 am

    I never cleaned a fan and heat sink before. However, I think I should do that sometime or my laptop will be gone too soon. Thanks.

  3. Jeannie Mitchell says

    September 26, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    I work for a school system and gave myself the task of vacuuming and using compressed air on 32 Dell Optiplex G280 desktops this summer in the elementary school where I am stationed. Last school year most of the teachers complained that their computers sounded like they were going to lift of there desks and fly around the rooms (and I can vouche for it). This noise was coming from the fan speeding up to keep the very dusty and clogged CPU heatsink from overheating the system. You should have seen the accumulation of at least 2-3 years worth of grime! These computers are a lot happier now.

  4. Jeannie Mitchell says

    September 26, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    I work for a school system and gave myself the task of vacuuming and using compressed air on 32 Dell Optiplex G280 desktops this summer in the elementary school where I am stationed. Last school year most of the teachers complained that their computers sounded like they were going to lift of there desks and fly around the rooms (and I can vouche for it). This noise was coming from the fan speeding up to keep the very dusty and clogged CPU heatsink from overheating the system. You should have seen the accumulation of at least 2-3 years worth of grime! These computers are a lot happier now.

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