My c. 2019 Dell G3 17" laptop had long since needed a replacement battery. When I got into it, I found what might be termed a "normal" amount of disgusting debris accumulation. I did save my pressure-washer for another day, instead went at it with compressed air from an air compressor. I use this all the time for mechanical cleanups (dust and grit removal, etc) and I suspect it's stronger than your average can of Dust-Off might be. But I do know it's not easy to actually damage even relatively delicate materials with it, so I had little hesitation.
I was blowing out the two fans, and started to notice a lot of crap coming out from within/below the blades on the smaller of the two. Soon, however, I noticed the 'stuff' coming out was not just debris, but the tiny plastic fan blades themselves (it wasn't easy to see when the blades were spinning). From the final lopsided configuration, they seemed to be much weaker where attached to the hub on one side of the fan. And since there were still bits and pieces trapped below it - which would interfere with ANY operation of the fan - I tried to strike a balance between more blades coming off, and getting the loose ones out from below. Powered up, surprisingly, it spins with no great vibration, but I'm here in part to ask about the potential for replacing the impeller or... Must the whole shroud/two fans be replaced, or is there a more targeted option?
While working on other crud-removal, I also managed to somehow dislodge the edge-contacts from the SSD, but without it blowing across the workshop - it remained screwed in place. I didn't even notice this until I'd reassembled, found that it failed to boot, and re-opened it. By then I'd been trying all manner of boot-device testing and setting changes, ultimately not really sure what made the difference (even AFTER I'd re-seated the SSD, that is - it still didn't boot up cleanly until I did some other fiddling, and when it did start up OK, I really didn't think I'd figured out why.)
A lingering problem that's doubtless related: my power-button now refuses to "short-push" to put the laptop to sleep, despite that it was and is still set this way. ALL my options are set to put the laptop to sleep, and the only way I can actually do this now is to use the mouse to select "power/ sleep", which works as intended.
Ideas about either problem? (fan blades, power/sleep failure)
I was blowing out the two fans, and started to notice a lot of crap coming out from within/below the blades on the smaller of the two. Soon, however, I noticed the 'stuff' coming out was not just debris, but the tiny plastic fan blades themselves (it wasn't easy to see when the blades were spinning). From the final lopsided configuration, they seemed to be much weaker where attached to the hub on one side of the fan. And since there were still bits and pieces trapped below it - which would interfere with ANY operation of the fan - I tried to strike a balance between more blades coming off, and getting the loose ones out from below. Powered up, surprisingly, it spins with no great vibration, but I'm here in part to ask about the potential for replacing the impeller or... Must the whole shroud/two fans be replaced, or is there a more targeted option?
While working on other crud-removal, I also managed to somehow dislodge the edge-contacts from the SSD, but without it blowing across the workshop - it remained screwed in place. I didn't even notice this until I'd reassembled, found that it failed to boot, and re-opened it. By then I'd been trying all manner of boot-device testing and setting changes, ultimately not really sure what made the difference (even AFTER I'd re-seated the SSD, that is - it still didn't boot up cleanly until I did some other fiddling, and when it did start up OK, I really didn't think I'd figured out why.)
A lingering problem that's doubtless related: my power-button now refuses to "short-push" to put the laptop to sleep, despite that it was and is still set this way. ALL my options are set to put the laptop to sleep, and the only way I can actually do this now is to use the mouse to select "power/ sleep", which works as intended.
Ideas about either problem? (fan blades, power/sleep failure)
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