My laptop sounds like a refrigerator!

Hey guys,

I'm one of those "deathly afraid of openin gup his computer" kinda guys, but I have a problem which seems to require direct intervention.

MY LAPTOP SOUNDS LIKE A REFRIGERATOR!

LIKE A FERRARI!

LIKE a robotic bee!

anyway you get the point - its making a whirring sound. My (uneducated) guess is that the fans are chock full of dust - I've owned this laptop for almost a year now, and have never done anything to it. But I don't know anything about maintaining laptops, so maybe someone with more expertise could tell me what the likely problem is, and how to solve it?

p.s.: My laptop seems to be working fine performance wise - its just the noise.

 

Hmmm, so a cursory search around the web has revealed that my left fan is most likely dead. Its making reaally really loud whirring noises so that seems to be the problem.. :/

So, having answered my own question, I have some follow ups:

The laptop is over a year old and has no insurance, meaning that dell wont just ship a fan for free - where should I get a fan?

How much would a fan like that cost, and what specifically is the part called? (full name of the model)

Should I install it myself (have 0 experience with these things), or let someone else do it?

Sorry for all the stupid questions guys, I'm a rather gigantic newb with computers

 

I can look up the part numbers of both fans as soon as I'm home. I even have two fans laying around, but considering the shipping costs you'll better get one from ebay.

But first of all, make sure the fans is really dead. You can for example remove the backplate while the system is running, then you can easily see whether this is really the problem. You'll have change some settings in the power plan, so that the system doesn't go to standby or whatever when you close the lid.

 

I restarted my laptop and the sound is almost gone still a bit of whirring but it sounded like a formula one yesterday, now its 10x quieter. I still think theres some sort of problem though; when I shut down my laptop I could actually here the left fan rotation slower and slower by inertia...

How do I check that the fan is shot when I open it?

 

Chances are if you remove the botton panel and clean the fans (and vents), the problem may disappear. Remove the battery and two Phillips head screws and you're in there. A can of compressed air works nicely. YouTube - ‪Cleaning the Alienware M15x‬‏.