Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Buy new fans for new MBP Unibody
- Thread starter theoski
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
No. There are 4 kinds of MBP fan, Old Left, Old Right, Unibody Left, and Unibody Right. All of them seem to be almost exactly the same blade and hub design, but with completely non-interchangeable screw locations and slightly different duct shapes.
Add two more for the first gen MBP left and right, which had different fan casing from the core 2 duo ones.
my left fan made a barely audible noise and they fixed it without being lame. From the time I dropped it off with fedex to the time I got it back was less than 5 days, and that included a weekend.
it would be interesting to know whats actually causing them to break, is there any visible damage on the fans themselves?
There was dust underneath both of them, but the fan blade head a visible tear on the bottom closer to the center which make me think that this is what was causing the noise.
I don't know what you mean by 'dying' but if it's a mater of noise, maybe you don't have to replace it.
I had a very loud fan once in my previous notebook. it was not a Mac, but it does not matter in this case.
It was an Acer, and gave me a bit of trouble to get in and get the cooler out, but I have managed to do it without damaging anything.
Since it was next to impossible to get a replacement part, especially not in a very short time frame, and I couldn't afford to get the machine laying idle (I have work to do!), I opened the cooler, dusted it blew it and got it as clean as I could.
opening the cooler is a piece of cake, compared to opening the whole notbook. 3 or 4 screws and you are done.
Gently pull the fan out of the motor core, clean the blades, remove all the dust you can, and get yourself a very fine motor lubricant oil, those that are applicable by spray.
After I cleaned and sprayed it, it became as silent as in the first day I ran it, it had to put the ear right on the air outlet to barely hear anything.
And it was a rather beefy machine, an Acer 8210 (which comes with a dedicated Radeon x1600 gpu, so it has to rather hot chips in there).
Of course, after I did it, I kept a good eye on both rotational speed and CPU temperature, to see if it was working properly (luckily it was).
So, instead of assuming your cooler is 'defective' , just lubricate it a bit. It is possible that its only 'defect' was having too little lubricant applied, which ended up being absorbed by dust particles over time.
Good luck!
I had a very loud fan once in my previous notebook. it was not a Mac, but it does not matter in this case.
It was an Acer, and gave me a bit of trouble to get in and get the cooler out, but I have managed to do it without damaging anything.
Since it was next to impossible to get a replacement part, especially not in a very short time frame, and I couldn't afford to get the machine laying idle (I have work to do!), I opened the cooler, dusted it blew it and got it as clean as I could.
opening the cooler is a piece of cake, compared to opening the whole notbook. 3 or 4 screws and you are done.
Gently pull the fan out of the motor core, clean the blades, remove all the dust you can, and get yourself a very fine motor lubricant oil, those that are applicable by spray.
After I cleaned and sprayed it, it became as silent as in the first day I ran it, it had to put the ear right on the air outlet to barely hear anything.
And it was a rather beefy machine, an Acer 8210 (which comes with a dedicated Radeon x1600 gpu, so it has to rather hot chips in there).
Of course, after I did it, I kept a good eye on both rotational speed and CPU temperature, to see if it was working properly (luckily it was).
So, instead of assuming your cooler is 'defective' , just lubricate it a bit. It is possible that its only 'defect' was having too little lubricant applied, which ended up being absorbed by dust particles over time.
Good luck!
There is a physical damage to the fan on the bottom, so there is something in the outer plastic casing or a motor hitting it.