Hello everyone,
I work in I.T. so I have seen some crazy things in my time, but this one just has me completely puzzled.
I have a Dell Inspiron N4010 and it has had a fan issue. Not sure if they are connected issues, but the problem came following an install of a 1TB Corsair SSD. Everything on the computer was working flawlessly except for the fan no longer worked.
I took the laptop apart (done this at least a dozen times for this model in the past) and the first thing I did was clean the fan. Didn't fix the issue so I ended up replacing the fan. After installing the new fan the issue still persisted. I installed SpeedFan (enabled Dell Support in options) and the program still picked up no trace of the fan.
I then assumed the port where I plug the fan into on the motherboard had failed. So I replaced the motherboard. Now something changed. The problem wasn't necessarily fixed but now when it gets pretty hot (about 80c) the fan all of a sudden turns on and becomes extremely loud. Almost as loud as a home server running at full load. It's very strange. And still SpeedFan doesn't pick it up. It just runs on its own and that crazy speed. I then backed everything up and reinstalled Windows. I can already tell that the problem is still there as the fan still won't run.
I can only see two more options of fixing this. Either I try and put some new thermal compound on the CPU and hope that works for some reason, or maybe the new fan that I received was D.O.A. and I can try to order another one of those and try again. I hope whoever reads this has helpful information as I'm almost to my wits end.
P.S. I suspected it could be the battery so I tried a hard reset (took the battery out and held power button down) and eve tried running the laptop without the battery inside (just power cord). Still no luck.
Thanks in advance to whoever reads this.
-TR