Laptop Internal Cooling Fan Not Working : Tips To Solve

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A laptop’s internal fan is a part of the cooling system that keeps its CPU and GPU cool and protects it from overheating. A laptop’s internal cooling fan draws air from the air vents located on the bottom of the machine and throws out hot air from either side left or right. The fan may be located either on the left or right side of your machine. In this tutorial, I will teach you how to fix the laptop fan if it doesn’t spin on startup. If the fan stops rotating then the cooling system of your laptop shuts down, thereby increasing the CPU and motherboard temperature.

If this problem is left unnoticed then this can damage the internal components of the laptop due to overheating. So I will tell you some possible cases in which the laptop fan doesn’t work, also I will tell the solutions of these cases.

Possible Cases Of Laptop Fan Not Working Or Spinning

1. Incorrect Positioning:

You should place your laptop on a firm level. Do not use it on your lap. A flat surface is highly recommended. In most cases, a laptop fan will not work after you boot up the laptop. There is no reason why the fan stops suddenly after a bootup. In this case, you should shut down the laptop and then start it again after 2-3 minutes. The fan will start working.

2. Heavy Dust Accumulation

Over time the fan accumulates dust on its blades that reduce its efficiency to cool down the machine, the fan gets clogged due to dust. This might be a possible case in which the laptop’s fan stop spinning. What happens actually is that when the laptop fan blades get covered with dust then the fan is unable to make an air flow. As a result, it just rotates without throwing the heat out of the system.

Solution:

You should clean the fan by disassembling the laptop and cleaning the fan blades to remove dust. You can take the help of any hardware engineer who is qualified at this job. The Fan should be thoroughly cleaned once in every 3 years and if it needs replacement then you should replace it with a new one. To prevent excess dust accumulation, always use your laptop on a flat and dust free surface.

Note:

When laptop fan is removed for cleaning the CPU thermal paste needs to be re-applied. You can use arctic silver thermal grease.

➜Also Read: how to apply thermal paste on CPU and GPU.

3. Blowing Compressed Air Into Fan:

We can blow compressed air in laptop fan through its vent to remove dust. But compressed air can sometimes become a case in which the fan gets stuck. Actually, the high pressure applied by the compressed air on the fan can leave it in a stuck state.

Solution:

Blow air from your mouth several times in the fan’s air vents located on left or right. After doing this several times, the fan will start working. High pressurized compressed air should not be used in the air vents.

4. Motherboard Faults: (Rare Situation)

Sometimes it happens when the fan is in working condition but fails to operate due to minor motherboard faults like blown capacitors (bad capacitor). These capacitors provide the necessary power to fan to operate. The bad capacitor can be identified by visually inspecting it, the top of the bad capacitor always bulge outwards, therefore, indicating that it is open.

Solution:

Re-solder new capacitors on the motherboard. Only use capacitors with the same voltage, temperature and power ratings. Motherboard faults are rare, use a good quality voltage stabilizer or UPS to protect your laptop's motherboard from voltage fluctuation and spikes.

5. Low Battery:

When the laptop’s battery percentage reaches less than 20% then the internal fan will automatically stop due to low power and you won’t even get notified. This problem is rare but when it happens it can damage the motherboard and CPU due to overheating because the cooling system is stopped temporarily due to very low charge left in the battery. I have encountered this problem on my ASUS notebook and DELL Inspiron laptop.

My ASUS laptop was low on battery and percentage reached to less than 20% and ultimately it reached 9%. The internal laptop fan turned off automatically and I was not aware that the fan is not spinning. After one hour I realized that the laptop is overheating because I started feeling the heat on my fingers and palm. The touchpad was very hot. I checked the temperature with Speccy and found that the CPU temperature was 60 degrees as the fan was stopped. On restarting the laptop a blast of very hot air came out from the fan which went normal in few minutes.

Solution:

If this problem happens to you then immediately turn off the system. Remove the battery and re-install it. Plug in the charger into your laptop and switch it on. If you have a laptop cooler then immediately place the laptop on it, if you don’t have one then build yourself at home see here below.

➜Read: How to build a DIY laptop cooling fan

Now start the laptop, this step is necessary because the fan will start removing the heat. Fully charge the battery and in future make sure to always plug in the charger when the battery level reaches 30%. If you mostly work at home then use a UPS to power the laptop adapter and use it without battery.

➜ Suggested Read: How to make a DIY power bank with laptop batteries.

Warning:

Sometimes the laptop fan stops spinning. It may happen due to electric current fluctuations. This doesn't mean that the fan has failed completely. A quick reboot will fix the problem. Whenever the fan stops spinning your notebook's internal temperature may rise up to 65 degrees and the bottom of the notebook will heat up. If you notice this then immediately shut it down and start it again to remove the excess heat.

When you start the notebook you will feel very hot air coming out from the fan with a burning smell. Always restart your portable computer if you come across this and never switch it off otherwise the heat will damage the motherboard parts. Also, make sure that your laptop charger/adapter is in working state and is giving stable voltage output. You can read tips to take good care of your laptop charger. This tutorial will also teach you to find out faults in a laptop charger using a voltmeter or a multimeter.

How To Know If Laptop Fan Working Or Not

You can use Speccy a hardware monitor application for Microsoft Windows. It tells the temperature of laptop’s hardware according to its usage. Today most laptops have Intel Core processors including i3, i5, and i7. So the idle temperature of these CPUs is 50 degrees.

So if Speccy shows 50 degrees then this means the fan is working properly. Other processors like Intel Core 2 Duo has an idle temperature range of 28-40 degrees. The temperature may even rise to 55 degrees even while browsing. So make sure you are sitting in a cool room having a temperature less than or equal to 24 degrees. Read tips to keep laptop cool.

Another way is that put your ear close to the air vent located either on left or right side. You will listen an air blowing sound and feel air coming out of the vent. If you neither feel any air and nor hear any blowing sound then don’t worry because the laptop fan runs at different speeds. At lowest speed, your ears cannot detect its working.

Run a game that can increase the CPU usage. When the game starts the fan will start to rotate at high speed and blow out hot air which can be even felt with hands. If the laptop fan is not spinning then the laptop's bottom (or where the CPU is situated) will become hot, this can be easily felt by touching the laptop's body.

Real-Time Laptop CPU Temperature Monitoring

The laptop fan may stop working anytime due to electric current fluctuations like whenever your laptop's battery is very low or depleted and you connect the charger. Monitoring the laptop CPU temperature in Windows system tray will help you keep track of the temperature. Basically, the normal temperature does not go above 50 degrees. If the temperature is unexpectedly high at normal usage then the fan may have stopped working. You can use speccy to monitor it in real-time.

• Download speccy.
• Go to 'View>Options'.
• In 'General' tab select 'Metric' in 'Temperature'.
  
  
  
• Click the 'System Tray' tab.
• Check all options here.
  
  
  

• In 'Output' select 'CPU'.
• In 'Sensor' select 'CPU 0-Average Temperature'.
• Refresh Every '1' sec.
• Click 'OK' and minimize it. The temperature will be visible in 'System Tray'.

If none of the above-listed solutions work then its time to replace the fan for the optimal working of your laptop.

Now you have successfully fixed a laptop fan that is not working and has stopped rotating. Now read this article. If you are experiencing weird problems with your notebook's fan then leave your comments here, we will help.

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