So what are those huge ft. knox bolts? do i need a special tool to get inside the fan for cleaning and lub? or do u just pry up the silver cowling? awaiting reply from all my hardware buds here…
jigs

please please :shock: please help here!!!!  i just need to get ths friggin fan out and i htink it’s bolted down - do u need a special tool?
thanks  

okay, two days and counting and no reply from my friends and enemies here! wuz up with that? i am getting ready to rip the fan out from it’s roots…please reply!!!!  i have the lid up and i am restarting the fan with my finger every 108 minutes, just like on LOST tv series….
jigs

Sorry no one has responded. I doubt anyone has had to do this yet. The good news is that it can be removed but the bad news is that it can only be removed from the bottom of the motherboard.

You’ll need to completely remove the motherboard and underneath it you should see the two screws that hold the heatsink/fan unit in place. The TR service manual shows this to be the case.

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]Sorry no one has responded. I doubt anyone has had to do this yet. The good news is that it can be removed but the bad news is that it can only be removed from the bottom of the motherboard.

You’ll need to completely remove the motherboard and underneath it you should see the two screws that hold the heatsink/fan unit in place. The TR service manual shows this to be the case.

thanks groove, as suspected…as pulling on the lugs from the top did not seem to work….any good instructions anywhere on removing the motherboard? or do i just have to adlib….ie. break it off.

jigs

on second thought, is there a way to lubricate the fan without removing it? what does the repair guide say about that silver houseing on the top of the fan? thanks!!!! :idea:

It doesn’t say anything. You’ll have to try it on your own as I don’t think anyone here has completely dismantled their system.

Just be very careful and document the entire process as your removing screws. E.g. draw diagrams or take photos of each step so you can easily reverse the process.

[quote author=“jiggy”]okay, two days and counting and no reply from my friends and enemies here! wuz up with that?

What sort of instructions would you get from your enemies?

1. Carefully remove fan screws with precision sledgehammer.

2. To reassemble, use fingers and rub copious amounts of super glue on fan fragments and carefully place on mother board in interesting collage pattern.

That fixed it! but how do i get the glue off the clear-brite monitor?  Well, see pics of art project in the post started by the dude putting in neon lights…jigs

Special thanks to Low Bat and GrooveO’s suggestions. Fan removal is not much fun in the TR, as you have to unseat the motherboard to get to the screws. Below is a pic of a minimul teardown, where not much needs to be disconnected on the right side, but loosening the WIFI mount and unplugging the sound card is about as minimal as it gets.

Cleaning the fan can also be done by just prying up the silver tabs on the housing, although you can only get to the top that way, and getting the tabs secured after that may be a problem.

The CPU is glued to the bottom of the fan/heatsink assembly with heat-sink gunk, so having some fresh on hand would be nice, i just used old chewed gum. :wink:

Thin-doublebacked sticky tape would also be useful (capacitor, display cables, etc.) as once you peel it off, that’s it.

Recommendations for folks with bad fans, buy a toshiba laptop and start fresh, or buy a fanless sony if there really is such a thing.  The toshiba I used to have has a cover on the bottom that you could remove, just like for the TR memory, it was that easy to clean the fan.

More advice:
* never take the 36-pin main cover cable (coming from the touchpad) out from the motherboard, but instead unhook it from the daughter board if possible - my new cable is long enough to do this - this is because the connector on the mboard will destroy the cable after several plugs/unplugs.  This has happened to many here already. The connector on the other end is much more friendly.
* Use the battery lock lever to shift the battery connector to the left to remove the motherboard from the connector slots.  That or take Low Bat’s advice and use a sledge hammer, then super glue it back.
* Combine this procedure with a new harddrive and updated WIFI card and glowing blue lights (if available). Save ya some time!

Good luck!
jigs