Question Laptop CPU Fan spins for a sec then stops, but laptop boots fine ?

[lazarba]

Hello. I have acquired an old Lenovo 3000 N200 laptop that had not been used in 4-5 years.

I booted it up, it worked fine until it shut itself off. After some digging around I noticed the fan wasn't spinning, so it appears the laptop had overheated. I opened it up and noticed that every time I power it up the fan spins for half a second and then stops, never to start again. Initially I changed the OS, but the problem remained. I bought a replacement fan, same thing happened. I updated the BIOS but still nothing.

The laptop works 100% in all regards. I have booted multiple operating systems, used programs etc.

The fan is the only thing that seems not to work, causing the laptop to overheat. I must also note the battery is dead and I have unplugged it, the laptop works on external power.

I am dumbfounded. If this was a motherboard error I would expect it to cause more trouble. The problem seems to only affect the fan. The fact that it spins up for a second before the system POSTs means that the fan is receiving power, so the connector works as well. What do you guys think I should check next?

Cheers.

 

[Viking2121]

Have you made sure its overheating, or are you assuming?

And did you have a look around the bios to see if there is anything related to CPU fan, some laptop at that time had an option to force full fan speed at all times.

Good Luck!

 

[wetpaint]

I have a couple of these I use regularly. They're nice laptops for Linux. Check your temperatures in Windows with something like Core Temp or CPU ID HW Monitor. My fans come on at >40C and it takes a few minutes from a cold start to get over 40C. You will not find anything in the bios related to CPU fan.

 

[Philipjustanewbie]

I have the same problem, causing random lockups.