Mid 2008 MacBook Pro fan issues?

The basic issue is that the fan on the right side of my laptop will periodically start making really loud noises that sound like grinding, and it's obviously not the HDD, so it has to be the fan.

I can do something like shift the position of it, and suddenly the noise will kick in. If I give it a love tap or turn it on its side or something similar, the noise might stop (or not).


I just took a look at istats or whatever it's called, and whenever this happens the RPM on the right fan will be at a different speed than the left fan. Something like 1963 compared to the left's 1999.

Heat sink A is usually about 10 degrees hotter than heat sink B.



Any recommendations? Is there a screw somewhere that need's tightening, or might it be the motor?

What exactly does fixing it entail? The fan is 50$, which could be worse, but this thing sounds like a freakin lawn mower, and it has now started to make the noise perpetually instead of occasionally.

Edit: found this http://nofilmschool.com/2009/02/how-to-fix-a-noisy-macbook-pro-fan/

So I put some WD40 on the fan and that helped for about a week, but the noise came back so I went ahead and bought a replacement. When I replaced it, I noticed that there was a strip of black electrical tape looking stuff with a copper looking strip on the sticky side, and it was still stuck to my fan, but not the heat sink in the laptop innards. Is it possible that this strip is what was causing the noise? Just a thought. Do I need it to be there? It doesnt stick very well when I apply it to the new fan.