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Lubricating Laptop Fan


mclaren85

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Hello, nowadays my laptop fan works noisy. Should I lubricate the bearings or just leave it? Somehow the temperatures are looking good. (42-45 C Celcius)

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Actually, I personally have felt that regular opening of fan's plug makes it susceptible for the oil to leak from it. That obviously defers from fan to fan, plug to plug, amount of oil put into it, how the fan is mounted and such.

 

Last time I checked, sewing machine oil are better than others when it comes to CPU fans and such.

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DON'T use any kind of Oil you will make it worse,The Stator Bush is worn,Use graphite powder

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Forgot to mention, make sure you clean the fan firsts, no need to oil it if cleaning the fan fixes it.

 

22 minutes ago, dezsez said:

DON'T use any kind of Oil you will make it worse,The Stator Bush is worn,Use graphite powder

 

This is interesting, I did not know about it. Searching on Google gives some suggestions against it though.

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Try compressed air, but I'd swapped fan to cool the CPU tips on deposits

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1 hour ago, DKT27 said:

Forgot to mention, make sure you clean the fan firsts, no need to oil it if cleaning the fan fixes it.

 

 

This is interesting, I did not know about it. Searching on Google gives some suggestions against it though.

 

Oil lubrication should only be done on inexpensive fans, which operate in the same way as electric motors, most commonly found in inexpensive and bad power supplies and blenders...
Other fans, such as those with ball bearing, do not need this. At the very least, remove the foulness of dust when necessary, as @kasper said...

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Having many repairs done in a form of cleaning and lubricating... (concerning laptops)- just pay up them few $$ and replace the fan with quality part from particular brand, using thermal putty as sort of "repairs" never last... 

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If it uses a ball bearing - no lube - it's shot. If it uses bushings - a small amount of turbine oil. Sewing machine oil is ok.

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Laptop fans always seem to be around $5 delivered here off ebay.  Thermal paste, if you renew that, might cost you $10 for a name brand performance product - I bought ARCTIC MX-4 washable and compared it to the silver last time and same temps, way easy cleanups.

 

There is a special oil made for electric motors, has no paraffin in it - but unless your fan has an oiling hole.. I don't think I'd oil it unless to experiment & its easily accessed and replaced and had a backup fan at ready.

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Fans aren't designed to be lubricated and should not be lubricated.  Just buy a replacement fan, they aren't that expensive and you won't have to worry about it seizing up or the lubricant you use damaging some other part of the system.  Some things are just not meant to be repaired and fans are one of them.  I keep a large Sterite tub full of fans of various sizes, including replacements for my many laptops because some of my desktop systems have as many as 15 fans in them and I replace them whenever one starts to fail.  This is especially true of laptop fans where a failure could render your laptop useless until it is replaced or could cause the destruction of the laptop do to heat.

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In most cases, fan does not work normally caused by dirt/dust.
If the fan is damaged then it must be replaced ... no question about that.

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On 27/1/2017 at 4:01 AM, WALLONN7 said:

 

Oil lubrication should only be done on inexpensive fans, which operate in the same way as electric motors, most commonly found in inexpensive and bad power supplies and blenders...
Other fans, such as those with ball bearing, do not need this. At the very least, remove the foulness of dust when necessary, as @kasper said...

 

Did not know that, good information. Thing is, how many fans out there are cheap ones.

 

Say, is sleeve bearing same as bushing fan mentioned above by @Whoopenstein. Also, my PSU seems to come with Fluid Dynamic Bearing which Seasonic claims to be better than the ball bearing one, any idea about it.

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that happened to me, the best way is to disassemble the laptop and lubricate and remove the residue left in the fan. The other is to apply the thermal paste to the CPU

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3 hours ago, DKT27 said:

Thing is, how many fans out there are cheap ones.

 

I do not know about India, but they are usually bought for less than a dollar here - sleeve bearing...

 

3 hours ago, DKT27 said:

Say, is sleeve bearing same as bushing fan mentioned above ( ... )

 

Let's just say that the second one is a slightly better version than the first... But it's not something I've seen in computer equipment...

 

3 hours ago, DKT27 said:

Also, my PSU seems to come with Fluid Dynamic Bearing which Seasonic claims to be better than the ball bearing one, any idea about it.

 

They're better, technically speaking. Technically, because they are quite effective in other technologies that have been applied for quite some time.

Here's a good article about it...

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3 hours ago, WALLONN7 said:

 

I do not know about India, but they are usually bought for less than a dollar here - sleeve bearing...

 

 

Let's just say that the second one is a slightly better version than the first... But it's not something I've seen in computer equipment...

 

 

They're better, technically speaking. Technically, because they are quite effective in other technologies that have been applied for quite some time.

Here's a good article about it...

 

I see. But I was implying that a lot of the fans found in computers might be the cheap sleeve bearing ones.

 

I see. So sleeve bearing ones require oil or not here.

 

Yup, read that article, just wanted your opinion, good to hear that.

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11 hours ago, DKT27 said:

 

I see. But I was implying that a lot of the fans found in computers might be the cheap sleeve bearing ones.

 

I could say: they all are... But it would be fair only when I referred to computers already assembled, whether OEM or assembled in most of the stores that sell them ... But I would not be fair with some more expensive cases once some usually come with ball-bearing fans...

 

11 hours ago, DKT27 said:

I see. So sleeve bearing ones require oil or not here.

 

Not by design. As I said in another posting, the use of oil is just to increase the shelf life. From time to time, the fan will begin to show noise, especially the first few minutes after starting the pc... Ceasing or minimizing noise afterwards. If the lubrication is not done, it will stop irremediably after some time... and rubbish!!!
I do not know how long it will take, but two drops of oil are born in the end of life!!!

 

11 hours ago, DKT27 said:

Yup, read that article, just wanted your opinion, good to hear that.

 

;)

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I wish GPU fans were easy to find. I had a cheap GPU who's fan's fins used to come out of it's motor - I'm not sure what that type of fans are called. The fan once broke and I found that the only way I could make it work was to oil it, unaware about how the fan's design was, I probably broke the thing that kept fan's fins connected with the fan. Still, after oiling, the fan used to work, however, it required to be oiled every month or so. Found all ways possible to get a similar sized fan here in my place, could not find any, even searched for a GPU cooler, same problem. The GPU was not it warranty either. Sent a family friend to the GPU maker's service center, they exchanged it for a highly power, previous gen GPU for just about $20. That's how I got introduced to the world and importance of GPUs in gaming computers here. :P

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On 29.01.2017 at 3:25 PM, pc71520 said:

I prefer to replace Fans than lubricate them.

+

once even used for my laptop's fan special Alfa Romeo hi-temperature greasing :D, easiest way is just replacement .

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