Have you ever killed a fan by cleaning it?

ell

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Hi, I got in a Dell N4010 badly infected with loud fan. I cleaned up the malware and blew the fan vents out with 35 psi, everything quiet, but apparently too quiet, fan not running at all now, before I order a new fan, could it be something else besides my blowing it out? I've done this a million times, never had this happen.
 
Yes you can burn up the barrings in the fan by forcing it to rotate at a faster speed then it is designed for. Always jam a plastic spudger in between the blades so that it doesn't rotate when you blow it out.
 
Yes you can burn up the barrings in the fan by forcing it to rotate at a faster speed then it is designed for. Always jam a plastic spudger in between the blades so that it doesn't rotate when you blow it out.

ahhh, maybe thats what I did, no opening big enough for a spudger on the bottom, unless I tear it apart, maybe a bent paperclip would fit in the fan vent next time, thanks











to secure it, thanks.
 
I've always heard that...never blow them out cuz you'll burn out the bearings. Usually just replace a fan when it's getting near shot...but quite a few times I've taken a can of compressed air and spun the living daylights out of those things..making that screaming zipping sound..and they've lasted for eons after that just fine.
 
I've always heard that...never blow them out cuz you'll burn out the bearings. Usually just replace a fan when it's getting near shot...but quite a few times I've taken a can of compressed air and spun the living daylights out of those things..making that screaming zipping sound..and they've lasted for eons after that just fine.

Yeah, that's what I do, apparently not a good idea.
 
Hi, I got in a Dell N4010 badly infected with loud fan. I cleaned up the malware and blew the fan vents out with 35 psi, everything quiet, but apparently too quiet, fan not running at all now, before I order a new fan, could it be something else besides my blowing it out? I've done this a million times, never had this happen.

WAIT. Did you blow them out by forcing air INTO the laptop from the outside or did you disassemble it and then blow it out ? I get machines from other shops where they take a compresseor and blow air in the exhaust vent or even the intake, it releases the "sweater" that's been knitting on the vent for the past couple of years and jams it into the fan blades.
 
Stopping it rotating with a something (paper-clip, screwdriver etc.) is not just about wearing out the bearings or destroying the bushing though.

Electric motor = electric generator. More or less. So spinning a motor means generating electricity and spinning a motor very fast can mean generating far more voltage than the circuit is able to handle. Guess manufacturers could protect their circuits with some diodes but they don't.
 
Stopping it rotating with a something (paper-clip, screwdriver etc.) is not just about wearing out the bearings or destroying the bushing though.

Electric motor = electric generator. More or less. So spinning a motor means generating electricity and spinning a motor very fast can mean generating far more voltage than the circuit is able to handle. Guess manufacturers could protect their circuits with some diodes but they don't.

Spot on, a generator is effectively a motor in reverse. It used to be called back emf.
 
WAIT. Did you blow them out by forcing air INTO the laptop from the outside or did you disassemble it and then blow it out ? I get machines from other shops where they take a compresseor and blow air in the exhaust vent or even the intake, it releases the "sweater" that's been knitting on the vent for the past couple of years and jams it into the fan blades.

^^^^^^ THIS! ^^^^^

We had one this week. A DIY compressed-can-of-air job.

The blast of air forces out what we fondly call 'The Furry Blanket' and turns it into a 'Furry Ball', effectively jamming the fan blades completely.

I love 'The Knitted Sweater' too though - that's a good one :)
 
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Not forgetting the static. Wonderful static.

Personally, I've blown out numerous machines, and have never had to lock down the fans prior to this.

I've never found static discharge a problem doing this either.

The only time I'm wary is blowing out psu's, as I have blown 2 motherboards doing this, although in those cases, I used the clients vacuum cleaner, and not my trusted swimming pool inflated.

Maybe that's down to my blower being less than hurricane force.
 
I always use a tie wrap to prevent the fan blades from over-speeding. I learned this a long time ago from a customer who manufactured fans for cooling the electronics in subs and jets.
 
air compressor, screw the cans. don't have to worry about freezing my hand to the bottle, no sir

but to be honest, after I got this little thing awhile back as a present:
Metro Datavac 3ESD

It sucks and it blows, so don't actually need a compressor anymore, but we have one for "larger" jobs

I try not to have my fans take off the runway, i already got one of those in my Frankenstein system. Its a 8-9k RPM, 100+ CFM...louder than hell, but the air being pushed by this 92mm fan is immense. Sounds like a jet taking off on the runway when it kicks up to anything past 50% fan speed
 
Hi, I got in a Dell N4010 badly infected with loud fan. I cleaned up the malware and blew the fan vents out with 35 psi, everything quiet, but apparently too quiet, fan not running at all now, before I order a new fan, could it be something else besides my blowing it out? I've done this a million times, never had this happen.

First never use 35 psi to clean anything electronic. That pressure is enough to blow components off of the PCB.

By using 35psi to blow out the fan you allowed it to free wheel at several 10,000 of RPM's and the fans are design for a max of a couple of 1,000 RPM's.

Back in my roadie days when I took care of Moving lights. On manufacture had labels on each fan stating not to use pressurized air to blow them out. On a whim we took an old fan and spun it up with 20psi and used a tack meter to read the RPM's. We got it up to 50,000 RPM before it seized. It was design to run at 3,500 RPM.
 
if the business goes under, we can always retrain as spin doctors. , which has no bearing on the matter. (sorry).
 
WAIT. Did you blow them out by forcing air INTO the laptop from the outside or did you disassemble it and then blow it out ? I get machines from other shops where they take a compresseor and blow air in the exhaust vent or even the intake, it releases the "sweater" that's been knitting on the vent for the past couple of years and jams it into the fan blades.

That is my thought. After blowing the dust out, you most often need to manually pull the wadded up chunks out with a tweezers.
 
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