I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to dismantle my precious ThinkPad T42p laptop, and extract the “fan error”.

Each screw slot is labeled with what it secures and what size of screw it needs. The sizes are listed and the real size of the screws shown. This is a DIY repair friendly design.

The fan had an odor of burnt electronics. I think the whole room stunk of it, but it might of been the smell of my despair.

There is a part number of 13R2656 and FRU # 13R2657 which matches what I expected from the schematic.

I looked up IBM worldwide purchase links for accessories, upgrades, and replacement parts and called IBM Canada maintenance parts retail.

They only speak in FRU, and let me know the part is $65.00 + tax + $10 shipping. That part number has been replaced by 42W5240, FRU 41W5204.

Searching I found a couple of ebay sellers with a bit cheaper parts, but not enough of a saving to offset the risk and likely long shipping time.

I called back IBM and ordered it Tuesday.

It arrived today, Thursday addressed by Purolator to Llord Budd:

It looks identical to the old one. It looks more like a car part than a computer part:

And smells about the same — maybe that wasn’t a burnt electronics smell, but I think the odor was a clue. I remember the odor being much stronger

The fan comes with the tiny drops of CPU paste already applied in the right place.

Assembling back the lappy was easy and when I started it up again, it was the best rendition of the Ubuntu startup sound I have ever heard.

I have left the bay empty for now. Previously, I always had the spare battery in there.

I will be careful to hibernate the laptop all the time. Previously, I didn’t think it mattered and also didn’t want to miss any of the discussions on the IRC channels I’m on, particularly the WordPress related ones. I will have to come up with a new solution there.

The laptop pretty much sits flush with my desk, which isn’t the best.

I now understand why I sometimes see people flip their laptops sideways when they aren’t using them:

But that seems awkward. I now appreciated the simple brilliance of Andy’s modification, the “Bigfoot MacBook Pro”:

Thursday Update: Yes, it seems that it was temporary!

I was already in a bad mood because of a combination of personal challenges and work-related quandaries from the day before, and then while working this morning my laptop shut down suddenly and in a manner I hadn’t seen before.

When I tried to start it back up I get 2 beeps, and the only text on the screen is Fan error. Wait a second something smells bad, like burnt plastic. Wow, the bottom of the laptop is hot.

The floor falls away and me on my chair plummet with the crumbling room falling on top of me.

It is almost embarrassing how bad I feel with the sudden loss of my Ubuntu Linux running laptop, but it is my trusty hammer. The hammer I have grown attached to; the one I know best.

I shouldn’t be surprised that it has failed me:

• I have been flushing more of my time on the Dell desktop running Windows Vista lately.
• I have been thinking about what parts of Windows and Mac OS I find much more productive than my Ubuntu experience.
• Recommending Apple Mac to some people!

Its feelings were probably hurt!

The laptop is out of warranty. I always recommend people get extended warranties on mobile or expensive hardware. This laptop does not because it was purchased by Flock in the US, and I bought it off them when I left.

First, although it seems likely that the fan is fried because I can’t hear it when I start the computer and the smell is worse in that area of the case, I still look to see if I have misdiagnosed the problem.

Error messages – ThinkPad General:

Fan error: Fan

Not very useful.

For a different ThinkPad model, I found that error could be caused by a problem with a bad battery. So I removed both the batteries and tried with just A/C. Same symptom.

While searching I discovered a great ThinkPad forum called thinkpads.com Support Community — you know you are using a good product when there is a community freely helping each other.

So I think my original diagnosis is correct. Burnt out fan. It is a mechanical part almost always on, and like the hard drive it will fail.

Lets see how I can get this fixed. I’m not encouraged that it’s the start of a long weekend.

Thankfully, I know a lot of good sys admins, and the best PC hardware person I know is my friend Aaron Greengrass.

He quickly found me a link to the schematic with part #, and the IBM/Lenovo contact information:

IBM hardware, software, and systems support
1-800-IBM-SERV
(1-800-426-7378)

And from there a support technician guided me to find a local business partner:

1. http://www.ibm.com/ca/
2. Learn about
3. IBM Business Partners
4. Find a Business Partner
5. Find a PC Warranty Service Provider

Six results for Victoria.

The first two I call I get voice mail before noon — yup, it’s a long weekend.

The third one, NexInnovations, the answering service says to call a 1-800. I speak to someone back east who says there is local service, but no “walk ins” I would have to courier it or otherwise ship it.

Next, I call Microserve Business Computers and the receptionist connects me right away and the person I spoke to was helpful, but they don’t carry an inventory of parts (shipped by air only a day or two) and turn around time is at least a week, and service is at $85/hr.

The reality of not having my laptop for at least a week sinks in, and my priority becomes setting up a full work environment on my desktop PC — yes, I will leave the OS as Windows Vista.

That $85/hr quote immediately reminded of what Daniel Lackey recently wrote “It’s a bit like cars. You simply HAVE to know the simple mechanics behind a car, and a bit of knowledge and experience with the car yourself before you take it in to a shop” before he went on a total car tangent.

When I was searching on all of those sites and forums about ThinkPads and “Fan error” I found out that people consider replacing the fan fairly easy and included in the response to most hardware questions is a link to the HMM, the Hardware Maintenance Manual.

This is another reason why the ThinkPad is a great family of products, manuals.

The next step is taking apart the laptop. Confirming the smelly part is the fan, and ordering that part.

I will let you know how it goes. My thoughts are also with my colleague Mark Riley who is also having his own severe computing problems.