pavilion g6 2231sc fan replacement

[nobody524]

Hi,

I dropped my laptop while travelling this winter, and the cover in the top left corner got damaged, it kinda pops-out everytime I close the lid and it has to be pushed back in. So much for the protective sleeve.

Anyway, after this event, I started noticing that the fan sometimes refuses to turn on when I power up the computer. Sometimes, it took couple seconds before the fan kicked in so I could continue booting, sometimes turning the laptop off and on again helped, one time dusting the fan helped, but now it seems that the fan is gone for good. If I try booting with the fan not running, I can see the computer stutter as it overheats.

The repair shop refused to take it in because of the damaged cover, so I guess I will have to fix this on my own somehow. Since I am not 100% sure what is causing the problem, I supposed I will need to replace the entire heat sink assembly.

I browsed the maintenance and service guide for G6 and I am slightly confused by the spare parts listed there. So my first question is twofold:

1. Which of the four heat sink assemblys is the one matching my model? The distinguishing factors are UMA/switchable discrete video memory and BGA- or non-BGA-based system. Can I figure this out before gutting the laptop to reach it?

2. Just to confirm, the heat sink assembly already contains a new fan as well? That's how I interpret the "available separately" comment next to the fan spare part number.

I also did some searching and it appears you can buy a "universal external CPU fan" (e.g. this thing from amazon ). If I understand this correctly, it sucks the air through the fan outtake. Would this be a sufficient replacement for the internal fan? In that case, I would prefer this solution over having to gut my laptop entirely.

Thank you for your time reading this. I am really inexperienced when it comes to doing something on the hardware side, but so far this forum was always tremendously helpful to me and it helped me to extend the lifetime and usefulness of my laptop by two years at least. So, any general hints would be most welcome.

[Chimney_83]

Greetings @nobody524,

Thanks for the post. 

I understand that you are looking to replace the fan on your computer. Don't worry, I will be glad to help. 

Kudos to you for doing so much of research on your own.

Have you opened the computer?

I checked the service manual and on page number 80 of the manual has a list of fans and the procedure to replace them. Click here for the manual. 

As there are multiple parts listed. Usually, we use partsurfer.hp.com to check the parts used on the computer. 

However, with the product number shared by you, there are no parts listed on the parts website. 

As a workaround, recommend you to open the computer and check the part number printed on the fan and replace it. 

You can use an additional fan to reduce the heat inside the computer.

Hope this helped. 

If the information I've provided was helpful,

Please give us some reinforcement by clicking the "Accepted Solution" and "Kudos" buttons,

That’ll help us and others see that we’ve got the answers!

Good Luck.

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

Here are your specs:

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c03540720

You have a discrete non-BGA system so this is the heatsink assembly you need:

Heat sink for use only with computer models equipped with switchable discrete video memory 680550-001

You can also order just the fan and that is what you should do. Since the heatsink is a hunk of metal it is not really possible for it to be broken, if anything is broken it must be the fan. The only problem with that is it can sometimes be tricky to get a new fan installed on the heatsink "just so" to prevent vibration so easier and only a few bucks more to just buy the heatsink fan unit as a piece. 

But the heatsink is turning out to be hard to find. This is the fan only:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fan-Ventilador-HP-Compaq-683192-001-683193-001-680550-001-4-Pins-F46-/232067...