Overheating

[CM68]

I have a Compaq Presario CQ61 laptop with AMD Athlon 2 Dual Core M300 processor. Just short of its one year warranty, I got the battery replaced as the previous one seemed to have died. Ever since I have received the laptop back (and the warranty expired) the fan has been extremely erratic. Now the laptop often shuts down in a protective mechanism. I installed speedfan which records the temp going up to 98 C and then stopping. Sometimes the fan comes on...and sometimes I have to just stop everything, lift the laptop off the desk or wherever I am, and wait for the temp to cool. The annoying part is that the cooling is far slower than the temp rising back to 98. I would be grateful for any tips

[Mumbodog]

Have you cleaned the vents lately?

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01657439

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[CM68]

Yes! I removed the keyboard and could find precious little dust. In any case, the fan barely comes on. If there was a lot of dust, wouldnt the fan wheeze away rather than be silent?

[Mumbodog]

Does the fan work at all?

All I can suggest it to update the bios to the latest version, see if that solves it.

[CM68]

I just did! Didnt work....

[CM68]

The fan works intermittently! I have just upgraded the BIOS this evening. No joy!

[Mumbodog]

All I can suggest it to install a new fan or remove and test the one that is in it.

[Antoniocool]

That's what you get for trusting hp. They send you back your machine in worse condition then when you sent it. That's how much hp sucks.

[CM68 · Accepted solution]

Not being an expert at this, i decided to soldier on for all this time. Finally, this weekend brought things to a head. The overheating made the hard drive crash ... and to cut a long story short, it was not too much of a risk any more to pull things apart. So I took the fan out, this meant removing almost everything out of the laptop. So if someone wants to emulate this, better keep track of how many screws you have removed and where from, and which connections go where. I noticed the fan was very sluggish in turning, even when I was physically trying to turn it. Although there was no dust to really speak of, I decided to prise the fan out of the sleeve bearing. I put in a tiny drop of oil (somthing that came with my treadmill) in the hole for the central spoke of the fan, taking care that none of it touched the magnets around, and put the fan back. The difference in its ability to rotate was obvious. Having done this, I fortunately remembered how to put the laptop back together. Three days later, everything is still working. I check the core temperature using speed fan and it doesnt rise above 60 even when i am watching live streaming tv. Stupidity or cleverness, i will let you decide. I just cant think why this would have happened?!

[Mumbodog]

+5 Clever and resourceful