Other Reasons for Broken Lenovo Fan

[lucid]

So I bought a fan for my old ass Lenovo IBM Thinkpad because the old one wasn't spinning which is obviously bad. I opened it up originally and found that when I turn it on, the fan spins for a few seconds and then slows to a halt.

Got my new fan in today, it fits perfectly. So I plug it in and start up the laptop. Sure enough, it did the same thing

First of all, I want to cry myself to sleep. Money is very difficult for me to come by, so it's wonderful news that I just wasted some. Second, does anyone know what the problem WOULD BE then? I didn't just buy a new fan, it came with the heatsink and everything. So unless I am literally the most unlucky mother fucker in the world(starting to seem highly possible), then why would the fan not spin, if it didn't have anything to do with the fan or heatsink?

[Da1N0nLy]

Perhaps the battery, aka power supply, may not have enough to power it on. Or maybe some of the sockets are messed up. Just a thought.

[lucid]

I'm just asking because I thought that the only problem I could possibly have here would be a bad fan. I figured this problem would be easily solved by buying a new one... guess not.

Could something be wrong with the motherboard?

EDIT: Also, it has nothing to do with the battery, this happens whether or not there is a battery plugged in at all.

[iTpHo3NiX]

The battery on the motherboard is just for CMOS to retain it's settings when the computer is disconnected from a power source (which is why you can remove it to clear BIOS settings). What fan are you using? Is it the CPU fan, or a case fan? If it happened with both fans it's probably the power source for the fan (ie the red and black cables that plug into the motherboard, that plug usually labeled something like "SYS_FAN,  FAN_1, CASE_FAN,  etc" may not be getting power) if you can, try plugging it into a different fan power source. There should be a few on the motherboard

If you have a multimeter you may be able to check to see if the ports are getting power

[Pak_Track]

How much power does the fan consume? If it's low on consumption, you could hook it up to a working wire. All you need is a wire cutter, and electric tape.

[iTpHo3NiX]

How much power does the fan consume? If it's low on consumption, you could hook it up to a working wire. All you need is a wire cutter, and electric tape.

I believe it's 5v but I'm just talking out of my ass. If so you can splice it into a usb port. But check to see if other connections on the mobo for fans are available. It sounds like it's shorting out since it spins then stops

[lucid]

AFAIK, most laptop parts will use 5V, but it does vary. Here, I'll just post the link to the fan.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-IBM-Lenovo-Z61m-Z60m-Laptop-CPU-Fan-Heatsink-FN01-/170652646050

There's only one, and it does the same exact thing as the "broken" one. I've seen this problem on google, it spins for a few seconds and then stops. Although everyone who had this problem magically resolves it by doing nothing, or didn't resolve it. I don't have any special tools that would help me test the fan either.

[proxx]

Direct Current:    
5V
Ampere:    
0.24A

Suggest you just see what that CD drive uses, rip it out and use that feed on the wires.
USB or anything else that deliveres the same current.

[lucid]

So I would just take wires from some other part that requires 5V and connect it to the wires running into the fan? How do I connect the wires, there's three different color wires coming from the fan.

[iTpHo3NiX]

So I would just take wires from some other part that requires 5V and connect it to the wires running into the fan? How do I connect the wires, there's three different color wires coming from the fan.

Red and black are the only ones you need to concern yourself with. Black is ground red is positive and im assuming the third color is either yellow or white. As long as the fan is grounded you can splice the red in some 5v power source wherever that may be

[lucid]

Wow, I did not know that about laptops. Must be an older laptop thing. Anyway, I plugged the fan back in and left the compter turned on longer. The fan initially spins for a few seconds, then stops. But THEN, it starts spinning again, and keeps spinning. Turns out I'm just an overreactive idiot.

Now I just need to buy yet another mother fucking screen for my fucking Asus which has gone through three screens in four years.....

[Pak_Track]

Now I just need to buy yet another mother fucking screen for my fucking Asus which has gone through three screens in four years.....

The one you mentioned in this?

[frog]

It's possible that the board is not getting power to the fan, as mentioned above. If you have a volt-meter this would be a good time for a continuity check. Check the power/ground pins coming off of the connector on the motherboard(do this with the laptop powered on; don't worry you won't hurt it).

To find your hot wire and ground wire look at the connector and find the corresponding pins on the motherboard connector. Most times they are color coded from the fan wires: red(hot); black(ground); yellow(signal). We are interested in red and black. Signal wire will tell fan to speed up or slow down. Probe what would be where the hot and ground wires connect to the board's connector and the meter will show you if there's anything coming through. The voltage coming off of the board that powers the internal laptop fans is usually a low voltage(3.3 or 5 volt).

Check this if you can, if you do and there's no voltage coming off of the board connector; could be a bad fan. I doubt that's the case. If the color coding for the wires is different than what I described, let me know and we can decipher what's what. If there's a blue wire, that could be your signal/control wire.

If there's not power coming out of the original cpu-fan connector, you can tap into your usb port's 5v connection. The first pin on usb is 5v and pin 4 is ground(see google for pinout), however you only have ~500ma of current to draw from the port. Your fan is probably rated at 200ma at least. This means that if you did this you probably wouldn't be able to use the usb port for anything else. Also, the fan will have no control wire so it would be running full blast all the time. At that point you could wire an inline potentiometer(looks like volume knob) to control the voltage going into fan(effectively speeding it up/slowing it down).

[lucid]

The one you mentioned in this?

Yeah. Wow! So I only fixed it like four months ago and it already broke. I knew it wasn't that long ago but damn! This is the third time this fucking Asus has had a broken screen on me.

Never getting Asus laptops ever again that's for sure.

@ frog - Lol thanks but you might have missed it. In the last post I stated that the fan indeed does actually work. When I initially turn the thing on the fan spins for a few seconds and then stops. But soon after, once it starts heating up, the fan turns back on.

So just to be clear to everyone, my fan works and all is well. I successfully replaced it. I was just bitching about my laptop screen that has broken three times on me. But overall this thread is solved.

[frog]

@ frog - Lol thanks but you might have missed it. In the last post I stated that the fan indeed does actually work. When I initially turn the thing on the fan spins for a few seconds and then stops. But soon after, once it starts heating up, the fan turns back on.

So just to be clear to everyone, my fan works and all is well. I successfully replaced it. I was just bitching about my laptop screen that has broken three times on me. But overall this thread is solved.

Good to hear, sorry I should have read more carefully; it was late last night when I made the post. I was just trying to help. Glad it's working.