What lubricants can be safely added to a laptop fan?

Question

I've got a fan in a laptop that occasionally makes some loud airplane-like noises. It mostly happens about 10 seconds after booting up and lasts for 10-20 seconds.

It also occasionally happens when the computer is running, but very rarely. Interestingly, it does not seem to happen when the processor is being used heavily.

The laptop does not have a discrete graphics card.

The fan is clean.

I'm not sure if the laptop is under warranty, but I trust my own skills much more than I trust the manufacturer (or the shipper).

Before I search for a matching fan and replace it, I thought I would see if it is safe to try any lubricants.

Are there any lubricants that are safe to use inside a laptop?

I don't want a fire or anything that will splatter and cause conductivity issues within the circuitry.

Answer 1

If you are hearing noises, it's already way too late. The bearings are worn and allowing the fan to shift its axis slightly, causing rubbing that wears the bearings more. Adding lubricants can make the problem better for a short period of time by filling the space around the worn parts of the bearings, reducing the fan's ability to shift temporarily. But very soon the lubricant will get squeezed out and the fan axis will shift again. Replace the fan.

Answer 2

One tried and true lubricant is sewing machine oil. Sewing machine oil is designed to work well with parts that move at high speeds, which is exactly what your computer fans are.

What David Schwartz said is mostly correct. By the time a fan is tilted/wearing on bearings, the fan's days are numbered. But if you can catch it quickly, you can prolong the life of the fan for quite a while.

Here's a little tutorial on how to go about it.

It's a bit too long to copy/paste it all over into an SE answer, but here's the gist:

1. The center of your fan has a sticker. Remove the sticker. When removing the sticker, be sure to be extra careful. You want to place the sticker back on the fan later, so it needs to remain intact.
2. Underneath the sticker is a little rubber 'plug'. Under the plug is a little metal cylinder (most of which you can't see). This metal cylinder is made of a porous metal.
3. Drop one and only one drop of oil on the visible part of the cylinder.
4. Put the plug back in place.
5. Put the sticker back in place.
6. After you turn the computer back on and the fan whirrs into life, it might take a little bit of time for the oil to distribute.

Desktop fans are replaced easily enough (they're all pretty cheap), but since you mentioned this is a laptop - which often have unique/hard-to-find components - a replacement might not be feasible. So sewing machine oil might be your best bet.

Answer 3

My recommendation would be NOT to add ANY lubricant. The computer fans are designed to be serviceless. ANd you definitely don't want anything dripping anything onto anything inside a computer... There are several possibilities as to what is the cause:

1. Fan (or fan/heatsink assembly) is not properly screwed in place and what you hear is harmonic resonance.
2. Computer has been opened and you have a cable that hangs over (or sticks out under) the fan and causes the rattle.
3. Fan is dying and this is it's swan song.

My bet would be on last one, though. If it happens on start and stop only it means that probably it got overheated or damaged at some point and it has deformed from temperature. Had this issue in laptop once - later fan started to cut out after some time and finally failed completely. Warranty job, though.

EDIT ON LUBRICATION: Any lubricant that would do anything good needs to be sticky (which means viscosity must be high enough), so that it sticks to the fan (duh.), but not too high so it can penetrate to the spot where it's needed. Since fans are somewhat hi-speed, most of the lubricant will get squeezed back out anyway. That means the dust particles and grit have something to stick also. Normally this is happening mostly due to static charge, so it means you can remove any dirt quite easily with airspray. With lubricant you get caking, which can be, after a while, basically only dissolved to get rid of. So WD-40 time (again). ANd after that lubricate again, since WD-40 is not lubricant, but a solvent. Since you end up with most of the lubricant on the outside, and with that speed it will be very fine mist, it will end up inside the heatsink. And thus more caking and more WD-40. That's why I mention viscosity - adequate oils will have low viscosity, which means above process will take hours; with high viscosity oils fan motor will be more strained spinning the fan, causing said motor to overheat... Higher temperature will lower viscosity of the oil, which will cause it to drain faster. And we're in a 'while-then' loop really... There is a reason why in case of high-rpm systems lubrication is applied to sealed components and it's usually grease.

I'm not saying lubrication is a dumb idea (just touching on mildly stupid), but I would see it as an emergency solution only, not normal usage, and with understanding there will be part replacement soon.

The fact that you can doesn't mean you should. Laptop fans are small, high-speed devices. They are designed without any lubrication whatsoever. SO that should give you pause right there. But just to drive the point home - since they're designed that way, there's really not enough space for the lubricant to matter in any reasonable timeframe.

Answer 4

I had a laptop fan that was noisy. I opened it up and cleaned the axle with some alcohol. I then used a needle dipped with alcohol to clean the slot/shaft/hole/? where the axle goes. There was some dirt in there that caused the axis of the axle to be slightly off. This caused the blades of the fan to graze the case, causing the noise. Then I used some mineral oil on the shaft and used the needle to get some in the hole. It has been running perfectly for 2 years now. FYI, mineral oil is non conductive. Ive fixed several laptop fans with this method.

Answer 5

I can only tell you my experience with an HP Pavilion laptop. Its fan started making noise like its bearing was bad, I looked online for lubrication tips, but read that nothing would likely work, so ordered a replacement fan, which I installed.

Two months later, the replacement fan started making the same noise. I had kept the OEM fan, and figured I had nothing to lose by trying to fix it. I found a youtube video that showed how to take apart the fan to clean its bearing. Because mine was so dirty, I cleaned it by rinsing it in camp stove fuel, after which it spun freely (had not before and was thick with dusty gunk which the fuel removed). I let it dry, then put it together and it seemed to work, but soon was making the same loud bad bearing noise.

So, I took it apart and put a tiny bit of silicone grease on the pin that is the axle the fan spins on. There are different viscosities of silicone grease. This one was thinner than the plumber's grease type. I got it from a diving supplies shop, and I believe it is intended for lubricating SCUBA gear O ring seals.

After I put on the silicone grease, I reassembled the fan and installed it. When I booted the laptop a warning displayed that there was a problem with the fan (looked like a BIOS warning).

I took it all apart again and looked at the fan's axle pin. I saw I had put a little too much grease on it, and some of the silicone grease had worked its way out of the axle bearing and to the space between the fan and the housing, where it apparently caused enough drag that it triggered the fan warning.

I cleaned off that bit of grease, and wiped a bit of the grease off the axle, leaving some, and put everything back together.

That was well over a month ago and the fan has worked silently since without more warnings. How long it will last I do not know, but it appears to me that cleaning with solvent and lubricating the axle pin with a tiny amount of relatively low viscosity silicone grease is worth trying to fix a failing / noisy laptop fan.

Update. Here we are two months after making my original post and it is still working flawlessly.

Answer 6

If the fan is noisy, it will be due to poor balance, or faulty/worn bearings, and these things cannot be fixed by adding lubricant.

If you trust your technical skills more than the manufacturer, then buy a replacement fan and install it yourself.

To answer your question directly. There is no type of lubricant that could be safely added to a laptop fan. Any attempt to lubricate the fan would likely spread lubricant everything throughout your laptop.

Answer 7

I have an old Thinkpad t410. Two month ago its fan stopped working. The problem was contamination. I opened it and detached the rotor from the stator. But after cleaning and putting them together, another problem showed up: Noise! After some searching I found that lubricating it may help. But lubrication was not the answer. After many tries and errors, I found the answer! I put the rotor in the stator when the fan was under voltage! and it's working like the day one with no lubrication or anything else. Maybe it's not the case for every one but it's something that should be considered. I think that when we put things together, the router is not aligned in its natural axis and by imposing voltage to the fan during the assembling process, it will find its natural axis.

Answer 8

Don't, it's shot. Order a new one.

Computer fans typically use sealed fluid dynamic bearings, so it's not possible to lubricate them anyway. You'd just be oiling the windings and magnet, creating a big mess and a dust trap.