Hello everyone, welcome to my blog. I have an old laptop that is rarely used. Not only it is an overheating laptop, but it is shut down by itself after ‘heavy’ use for less than 30 minutes.
The laptop in question is a Lenovo IdeaPad Z470 which is almost 10 years old. It is rarely used and usually is used to connect to a non-Smart TV for streaming purposes.
This laptop reaches a temperature of 70-80 degrees Celsius even though it only runs background processes. I don’t know how much temperature this laptop can reach so that it will go out on its own.
But with this overheating problem has stunted its use. Although this laptop is old, but can still be used for non-demanding tasks.
Before this laptop becomes a roast laptop, I better try to solve this laptop overheating problem by changing its CPU fan.
I provide a timelapse video of my process replacing the fan. You can watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Btm0UrSOc or directly below.
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Process of overheating laptop solving
Here is a summary of the process I did to replace my Lenovo IdeaPad Z470 CPU fan.
First of all, I opened the bottom cover to access this laptop fan. I am lucky because the replaceable components like HDD and RAM are easily accessible just by opening this cover.
Once the CPU fan is accessible, remove the fan to clean it and replace it with a new one.
But before that, I removed the fan connector to make my work easier.
This CPU fan needs to be separated into two parts because the spare part only comes in half, the other half is part of this laptop heatsink. It needs to be cleaned and reused.
Dust and thermal paste residue need to be cleaned. For the thermal paste, TechTubers often recommend cleaning with isopropyl alcohol with a concentration of 75%, but I use alcohol wipes that are only 70% isopropyl alcohol.
It is difficult to clean the thermal paste residue that is almost 10 years old which is as hard as stone with alcohol wipes. As long as I can get rid most of it, it’s good enough.
Combining new and original part together
After the reusable parts were cleaned, I installed the replacement fan I showed earlier.
Although the fan blades are different but the external physical shape matches the original when viewed at a glance. But the screw holes do not match, so I can only screw one hole.
Not a big deal, this part managed to merge neatly because the other part had clips to hold the two parts together.
Before this fan is reinstalled, the thermal paste residue on the CPU and GPU also need to be cleaned.
Once the CPU fan is reinstalled, the last steps are to reinstall the fan connector and the bottom cover of the laptop. My laptop is ready for testing.
The result after replacing the CPU fan
The first time I turned on the laptop immediately after the CPU fan replacement, I felt as if no change had taken place. I feel disappointed.
But after my laptop was turned on later for streaming of the Malaysian Super League on the unifi YouTube channel that night, I found the temperature has dropped quite significantly. At 50 when idle, at 70 when in use, and no longer shut down by itself.
Although I think the temperature is still high, but the temperature decreased significantly compared to how it was and probably because it has small fan compared to desktop counterpart.
I am impressed with the result, this laptop can be used again if needed without the overheating problem.
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