Spoiler: It’s not the site you were hoping for. It’s about laptop fans. The kind that whine
So unfortunately, if you came for some kinky content — yeah, you’re in the wrong place. Unless thermal paste and tiny screws do it for you. Then… welcome.”
What follows is a tale of overheating, misdiagnosis, sticky residue, failed replacements, and — eventually — redemption.
My laptop
My current workstation is a Lenovo Legion 16″ laptop, powered by a Ryzen 7 CPU, an Nvidia RTX 3070 (laptop variant), 32GB of RAM, and a boatload of storage. It’s over three years old now — but still going strong. It handles everything I throw at it, day in, day out, without breaking a sweat.
But recently I started to notice that the laptop was getting hotter and hotter — especially the keyboard — while the fans were spinning like mad all the time.
So, like any sane person, I grabbed a can of compressed air and gave the vents a good blast — completely unaware I was about to make things worse.
I removed the backplate, checked the fans, grabbed the can of compressed air and blew one hell of a lot of dust out of the ports — or so it seemed. Then came the first uh-oh moment. I tried to manually spin both fans with my fingers… and one of them simply refused to play along.
After another healthy dose of compressed air, it decided to spin again. Manually, at least. But spinning smoothly?
Eh… NOPE.
The startup
I decided that good is good enough, put the backplate back on, screwed it down, and powered up the laptop.
And right as I hit the ON button — all hell broke loose.
Like a jet engine doing a full-throttle takeoff… ten meters away.
That whining noise? Yeah, no surprise — it’s the same fan that needed convincing to spin in the first place. And now it’s making damn sure I know it’s unhappy.
Round #2, another dose of air
Without opening the laptop, I decided to give it another round of compressed air — of course, after shutting it down.
It helped a bit.
The extreme whine was gone, but the fan was still really, really, really unhappy.
Verdict:
Laptop still more or less usable — but yeah, it needs a fan replacement.
After watching a how-to video on YouTube, I realized I also had to remove the heatsink, clean everything thoroughly, and re-apply thermal paste.
So I ordered what I needed:
- Two brand new fans with the official specs from a respected Lenovo dealer
- 99% isopropyl alcohol (IPA)
- MX-6 thermal paste
- A fresh can of compressed air
Let the real operation begin!
Operation #Cleanup
I kicked things off around 10:00 AM, casually thinking: “Shouldn’t take more than 30, maybe 45 minutes.”
…Yeah. Rookie mistake.
(Mental note: never, ever say that out loud.)
Everything was ready. Tools, fans, paste, IPA — all within arm’s reach.
What could possibly go wrong?
First step after removing the backplate: take pictures. Because nothing says “I’m confident” like documenting everything in case I screw it up.
And yes — those pictures turned out to be really helpful later in the surgery. I could double- and triple-check the fan cabling before closing things up.
And off comes the heatsink.
Underneath: thermal paste so dry it could qualify as sediment.
Cue the isopropyl, cue the cotton swabs — it’s cleaning time.
Cleaning done. Thermal pads checked — all looked intact, so no need to touch them. The fans? Still untouched… for now.
CPU and GPU almost clean. There was still some thermal paste between the resistor pads on both chips — and it took forever to get it all out without damaging anything.
Operation #Onlyfans
And finally, I reached the point where I could start tackling the fans themselves. The process is straightforward: remove five very tiny screws, peel off some adhesive tape, and pry back a bit of foam backing.
And boy, was I in for a surprise when I removed the screaming fan first.
That dustbunny was wedged between the rotating assembly of the fan and the outer casing. And here I was, thinking I had removed all the dust the week before.
Nope.
All I did was displace it — straight into a corner — until the fan could no longer spin freely.
And the fan? Yeah, it got angry.
It screamed. Loudly.
Exchanging the fan was easy. Nothing really to report there.
And again… I jinxed it.
The other fan had similar issues — dust, and more dust.
Replacing it wasn’t the hard part either.
Operation: #Reassembly
Time to reassemble everything!
But first — apply fresh thermal paste.
Getting the amount right is always tricky.
Too much, and it squeezes out everywhere — just look at the cleanup nightmare I had earlier.
Too little, and the cooling suffers.
It’s a fine line.
And in hindsight… yeah, this was a teeny bit too much.
And yes — my laptop still works!
But something felt… off. It was too quiet.
Time for a test:
stress --cpu 4 --timeout 60
And you guessed it — the heatpipes got hot, the fans did nothing.
*insert some nasty words here*.
But to keep it nice, I’ll swear in cartoon style.
(#$@*()@$#)*($#@*()$@#*))@$*(
Operation: #Debug
I checked the photos. Rechecked all the cables and connectors — everything was seated correctly. I removed the fan connectors and re-attached them, just to be sure.
Ran another test. And nope — still no happily spinning fans.
I tried resetting the entire system, hoping it would reinitialize the fan controller. The reset worked — I lost my keyboard lighting presets.
But the fans?
Still silent. Still useless.
Another test.
I disconnected the new fan and re-attached the old one. Then I powered up the laptop.
I held the laptop in my hands, the old fan still dangling from its connector. And then, right in front of me —it started spinning.
Okay — time for the ultimate test. I attached the other old fan — yes, the screaming one.
And… success.
Both fans started spinning happily.
Two new fans — connected correctly, reseated properly — no spin.
The old fans, dangling by their wires, spun up like nothing ever happened.
Operation: #Letsdothatalloveragain!
So I did everything all over again. Removed the heatpipes. Cleaned everything — again.
Replaced the shiny new fans with the battle-scarred veterans.
Re-applied the thermal paste — this time a bit less than the first attempt 😛
And reassembled everything. Again.
Before attaching the back cover, I did one last check — just to be sure. Powered on the laptop. The fans stayed quiet. Linux booted. Still nothing.
Opened a terminal.
Nothing.
Ran the stresstest again.
Still nothing.
I started to get worried.
Did I mess something up… again?
And then — finally — after 10 seconds:
The fans spun up.
No screaming. No grinding. Just quiet, happy airflow.
Mission Accomplished!
Moral of the story
I have no idea why the old fans worked while the new ones didn’t.
I ordered them from a Lenovo-certified partner. I double-checked the exact model and spec. They were pin-compatible — I even verified the cable layout and colors.
They looked identical. And the new fans? Delta — a respected manufacturer.
And yet…
Both new fans simply refused to spin.
And the three-year-old fans?
They happily continued their work — after being properly cleaned for the first time in three years.
My laptop is quiet again. It even feels more responsive than before — and the keyboard stays noticeably cooler.
Turns out, this thorough cleanup was much more necessary than I thought.
Or to be more exact: It was long overdue!
I made a mental note to do this once every year.
For now, I’m just a happy user of my cool — and finally quiet — laptop again.
Tweaker. Tinkerer. Fan whisperer.
Brain out. 😛