Fujitsu Lifebook "Fan" Issue

[Bootman 650]

So.. I've got a laptop on the bench today a Fujitsu Lifebook - looks about 4/5 years old judging by the beating its taken, chunks missing from everywhere, only one screw holding down the bottom panel.

On boot at the post screen it would show a message saying that the fan had failed and would shut down in 30 seconds.. This is why the job came in.

Obviously, the first thing you'd do from there would be to check the fan. Unscrew the single screw from the bottom of the laptop and power on the laptop again, fan working absolutely fine, no issues here.

Powered down. Removed battery. Cleared risidual power. Removed heatsink and fan, found lots of crispy thermal paste and a cpu that looked like it had been well and truly fried and smelt like it had been on a barbecue. I cleaned up the processor and heatsink with alcohol wipes, when i'd done that there were no signs of the barbecue so whether or not the cpu was damaged or not I didn't know. Reapplied thermal paste and reseated the heatsink + fan.

Powers on - Boots into Windows, no messages saying the fan has failed, straight in. After 30 seconds (not exactly, but roughly) the laptop powered off instantly. Losing all power. It wasn't running on the mains at the time. So I assumed the battery had possibly died. Nope, not the case. I plug in the mains adapter - no charging light. Press the power button, nothing. NO POWER AT ALL.

What the F**k is going on?

 

[AndyM]

Powers on - Boots into Windows, no messages saying the fan has failed, straight in. After 30 seconds (not exactly, but roughly) the laptop powered off instantly. Losing all power. It wasn't running on the mains at the time. So I assumed the battery had possibly died. Nope, not the case. I plug in the mains adapter - no charging light. Press the power button, nothing. NO POWER AT ALL.

What the F**k is going on?

When you re-applied the AC power, did you remove the battery, or was the battery still attached?

I'd do a hard reset - remove battery, mains, press and hold power button for approx 15 - 30 secs (dependant on model). Attach mains power only, and boot it up. See how long it lasts just on mains.

Andy

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Could the controller for the fan have died on you? Is there maybe a bios setting to disable the monitoring of the system/cpu fan? Maybe try that. But if it's not detecting the fan, the system may be thinking it's overheating and shutting down to prevent damage even though you know the fan is good.

 

[Bootman 650]

I've tried all of those things.

I just can't get any power to the Laptop at all. With or without battery. Tried clearing residual power by holding power button.

 

[Bootman 650]

Okay - so now I've managed to get it to reboot. I did the power button trick which I'd done before about 5 times. Don't ask why it worked this time. The fan message has returned and wants to power down in 30 seconds. It gives me 3 options "F1 to continue" "F2 for BIOS settings" "F12 for Boot Menu". None of which work when pressed. The laptop just powers down after the 30seconds has ran out.

Also tried removing CMOS battery.

Really starting to think this might be a motherboard issue rather than a fan issue. Fan is working perfectly, heatsink is seated perfectly, new thermal paste applied. Motherboard or processor, what do you think?

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Either way if the computer is more than a couple of years old, I think I'd just tell them the amount of work/time into that computer is worth more than their machine, but that you'd be more than happy to sell a new one to them and transfer their data, for a nominal fee of course

 

[nlinecomputers]

Both? You thought the CPU got cooked and I bet it may have but I would think a CPU problem wouldn't cause fan errors just random stuff so probably its the motherboard.

 

[Digital Sage]

Give up. It sounds so old and beat up, I'd declare it a write off, tell them better off buying a new one and charge them diagnostic. Pushing **** up a hill.