[wplug] laptop fan humming?

Zach netrek at gmail.com
Sat Dec 17 05:16:04 EST 2005


On 12/17/05, Dave Tremel <djtremel at zbzoom.net> wrote:
> One word: eBay. I've replaced many parts on an old CPi over the last
> several years. They have been acquired for a fraction of the price that
> Dell would have charged.
>

Morning Dave,

I see. I searched for "Dell C600 fan" on Ebay but didn't get many
fits, and the ones I looked at didn't make it clear if "cooling fan"
is same as "exhaust fan" which is what I need. BTW I downloaded a
utility called I8KFN and was able to turn off the fan using:

C:\>i8kfan
Inspiron 8000 fan control utility V1.0 - extracted and optimized by MH

Usage: I8KFAN <inner fan speed> <outer fan speed>
       Fan speeds: 2=high, 1=slow, 0=off, -=don't change
       Example: I8KFAN 1 1 -> set both fans to slow speed

C:\>i8kfan 0 0
Setting inner fan to off
Setting outer fan to off

So right now I have this setting (both set to 0).

I assume the inner fan is the CPU fan? Is setting it off bad? A few
minutes later the outer fan came back on (very noisily as usual - now
sounds more like a grinding noise than a humming!) and i had to issue
the command again.

If i set inner fan on it starts a low pitch humming which I haven't
heard before so does this mean my inner fan (CPU fan) has never been
working before? That doesn't seem right. I set the speed to lowest (1)
when I  tried that. As soon as I set the outer fan to 0 the noise
immediately stops as the fan spins down so I know that is the problem.

In the meantime I don't want to damage my CPU, motherboard or RAM,
video card (on-mboard) etc.. so should I set the CPU speed to slow
even though I didn't notice it ever being on before (low humming) and
should I set the outer fan (exhaust) to slow even though the noise is
rather horrendous until I can get a new one from Ebay or can I get by
for a few months with it off as long as I only run my laptop for a few
hours a day and shutdown when I am done?

> If you are hardware inclined, it's easy to completely disassemble any
> Dell laptop and completely replace just about every component.

I don't have much hardware experience. How do I get the case apart
without breaking it?

Zach



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