Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Replacing CPU Fan On PowerBook G4?

Goftrey

Goftrey

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 20, 2011
1,853
75
Wales, UK
As you can see from my signature I have an 800mhz TiBook. It's performing well but by Christ does it make a noise after a while. I can see a black and a red wire next to the CPU fan but I'm not sure if that connects to the fan.

Is the CPU fan the problem, or is it just the old chip getting on in years and needing cooling down a lot? If the CPU is the problem, how would I go about replacing the fan?

Cheers guys, once again, appreciate it :)
 
zen.state

zen.state

macrumors 68020
Mar 13, 2005
2,181
8
Goftrey said:
is it just the old chip getting on in years and needing cooling down a lot?
Click to expand...

That is the correct answer right there. Anything that uses tiny fans like laptops are noisier. Small fans have to spin a lot faster to cool properly. Not that your CPU is on it's way out. It's that it need to be worked a lot harder to do modern things with an 8 year old laptop.

If I were you I would learn to embrace the fan sound as it's keeping your great new machine alive. :)
 
Goftrey

Goftrey

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 20, 2011
1,853
75
Wales, UK
zen.state said:
That is the correct answer right there. Anything that uses tiny fans like laptops are noisier. Small fans have to spin a lot faster to cool properly. Not that your CPU is on it's way out. It's that it need to be worked a lot harder to do modern things with an 8 year old laptop.

If I were you I would learn to embrace the fan sound as it's keeping your great new machine alive. :)
Click to expand...

Aha, I don't actually mind the noise too much, I like to hear all of the parts doing their 'thing' making all the magic happen :)

My brothers just gets annoyed when he's watching the TV and all he can hear is my lovely little PowerBook working it's socks off

No worries there then, I'll just say tough luck to my brother next time he complains about it ;)
 
S

Subish

macrumors member
Dec 2, 2011
53
1
If it is just noise from blades cutting the air, sounding like a wind tunnel when it starting work hard this would be normal but if it loud all the time maybe the fan is going bad.

I had some fans on my videocards (PC gear) go bad before and they get LOUD!. I find that smaller fans go bad faster just because they work harder to to cool.
 
Badrottie

Badrottie

Suspended
May 8, 2011
4,317
336
Los Angeles
if you see a lot of dust on the fan then time to clean it with air blower and the noise will go away…your brother will kiss you forever!
 
B

burnout8488

macrumors 6502a
May 8, 2011
575
79
Endwell, NY
Never hurts to go inside, remove the heatsinks, and apply a new layer of premium thermal paste to all of the chips. It gives you a good chance to clean out all the dust as well so the computer will perform as cool and quiet as possible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom