My laptop was complaining about overheating. Windows popped up a message saying I had to return my computer to the manufacturer. But I thought it was just a bad fan. So I found the part number for my exact laptop and bought a replacement fan online for less than $20 bucks.
Here are the steps I took to replace it. And it worked!
The toolkit with small screwdriver, plastic pry tools, and tweezers. A good investment!
Bottom of laptop showing screws. There were several rubber boots covering the screw holes. Thats where the tweezers made it simple to yank those out.
Unscrewing one of the 14 screws on this Toshiba Satellite laptop.
Prying the case off. After unscrewing everything, the case needs to be pried off using a plastic or metal pry tool. A lot of plastic crunching sounds is normal and scary.
The motherboard exposed! The fan assembly is on the top-left with a copper heat pipe connected to the CPU heatsink. It’s taped in place to stop leaky airflow. Battery is top-right. Two memory boards are on the bottom-left. An SSD disk in bottom-center. And the DVD drive is the metal square on the bottom-right. The CR2032 BIOS battery is on the bottom-left (it looks like a nickel). This needs to be replaed every few years to keep your clock rock steady.
Three screws held in the fan and 4 screws held down the heatsink. You can see where the heatsink was attached to the CPU with the leftover thermal compound “goop”. The copper heatpipe is welded to the heatsink radiator – the comb-like shape on the right of this image.
The replacement fan comes with spare tape and thermal compound. Fan power is supplied by a short connector. The thermal compound is important to apply to the surface of the CPU, then it gets smashed between the CPU and the copper heatpipe when you screw it all back together.
Annd it works! I booted up Windows and launched a game while the laptop case was still open so I could make sure the fan runs as expected at high RPM. It’s been a week now and no more temperature warnings have popped up. Yay! Reassembly is just reversing the take apart steps. And that’s how I saved a grand not buying a new laptop. I like this laptop a lot and I don’t even want a new one. It’s super upgradeable and repairable.