Five parts rage, three parts delight
Jun. 18th, 2009 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsThis morning, my laptop's fan finally started grinding, badly. It was a loud buzzing noise that filled me with fear; although I have the critical material backed up and don't have much fear about the hard drive at the moment, it is the fastest CPU and best monitor I own. Working on the hunk of junk desktop I have would be severely limiting.
But, I thought to myself, I have a spare fan assembly downstairs, one I ordered a few months ago when the fan started to go bad. I knew I'd need it one day. Today is that day, right?
So I sat down and started working my way through the instructions on how to disassemble a thinkpad. If the T43 was fun to disassemble, the T60 is a dream. Not only is it easy to get right down to the motherboard on this baby, but every screw is iconographically marked, making it child's play to know which screws to undo. All you have to remember is to reassemble the parts in reverse order and it's all good.
Then I opened up the box from the parts retailer, took out the fan assembly, and tried to put it into place. It didn't fit. I pulled out the packing slip and discovered that, although I had ordered a 41W6409 fan assembly for a Thinkpad T60, what was actually in the box was a 41W6568 fan assembly for a Thinkpad Z60. And it's long since past when I can return it. Fuck me. Even worse, now looking at the packing slip, that's not even my name on it! It's some guy name "Faisal" who lives in Orange County, California!
So, I reassembled the laptop with the dubious fan. It's behaving right now (I cleaned out the inside with a can of air, and it really needed that), but it still makes a threatening rattle.
I called the parts supplier and even though it's long past the return period, they agreed to replace it with the correct model, as this was clearly their mistake, and they don't want to get slammed. That's delight number two.
And delight number three: for reassembly I applied some Arctic Silver thermal paste after cleaning the old stuff off, and it seems to be running about three degrees cooler than it used to. That's a win all around.
Now if the fan will behave long enough for its replacement to get here, I'll be happy.
But, I thought to myself, I have a spare fan assembly downstairs, one I ordered a few months ago when the fan started to go bad. I knew I'd need it one day. Today is that day, right?
So I sat down and started working my way through the instructions on how to disassemble a thinkpad. If the T43 was fun to disassemble, the T60 is a dream. Not only is it easy to get right down to the motherboard on this baby, but every screw is iconographically marked, making it child's play to know which screws to undo. All you have to remember is to reassemble the parts in reverse order and it's all good.
Then I opened up the box from the parts retailer, took out the fan assembly, and tried to put it into place. It didn't fit. I pulled out the packing slip and discovered that, although I had ordered a 41W6409 fan assembly for a Thinkpad T60, what was actually in the box was a 41W6568 fan assembly for a Thinkpad Z60. And it's long since past when I can return it. Fuck me. Even worse, now looking at the packing slip, that's not even my name on it! It's some guy name "Faisal" who lives in Orange County, California!
So, I reassembled the laptop with the dubious fan. It's behaving right now (I cleaned out the inside with a can of air, and it really needed that), but it still makes a threatening rattle.
I called the parts supplier and even though it's long past the return period, they agreed to replace it with the correct model, as this was clearly their mistake, and they don't want to get slammed. That's delight number two.
And delight number three: for reassembly I applied some Arctic Silver thermal paste after cleaning the old stuff off, and it seems to be running about three degrees cooler than it used to. That's a win all around.
Now if the fan will behave long enough for its replacement to get here, I'll be happy.
