WANT TO CHANGE MY T61's FAN,HELP!

Question

My machine has been used for 2 years more, the fan is still good, but i think the there must be wear that affects the the fan's ability to perform as well as a new fan, so I just want to call lenovo to replace my fan without significant reason, is that possible ?, BTW I bought in singapore .
Any reply is appreciated
Regards
Steven

Answer 1

If you're comfortable opening up the case and doing a little minor work, then just do this:
I had an issue with my T61 overheating, but in this case, it was actually shutting the computer down when doing CPU-intensive tasks.  
I went to a computer parts store, bought a good tube of thermal paste (cost like $15) and some compressed air.  Get the good stuff if you have a good processor.  It works much better than the stock stuff.
First unplug your laptop, take the battery out, then Unscrew the Screws at the bottom that hold the palmrest, Keyboard down (they'll be marked) then the screws that hold the bezel (not marked).
Once those are off, draw a quick sketch of the inside components, and as you take screws out, label on your sketch the size/colour of the screw, so everything goes back in correctly.
Then, you'll need to take the top left speaker out, and two metal 'arms' that hold the Fan in place.  The fan should then pop out.  If there's another screw I'm forgetting about, take it out too.
On the fan, your CPU and GPU, there will be old thermal paste.  With a lint-free cloth, with a bit of 70% rubbing alcohol, clean the paste off.  Be sure to use something that won't leave residue.  Things like TP, kleenex, etc are bad.  Coffee Filters work pretty well.
Now with the compressed air, spray out the inside of yoru laptop, spray the fan out well, and anything else that looks dusty.  
Now put a bit of the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU, and pop the fan unit back in place, screw it in immediately.  Put the rest of the components back together, and while you're at it, take the time to blow out your keyboard, as I'm sure its full of dust, crumbs ,hair, and other fun stuff.
This would likely solve your problem for under $20.  And best yet, you don't have to ship your laptop away for a few weeks.  
In my case, I thought there were bigger problems.  After shutting down, sometimes the battery/plugin, etc. lights would turn off too, and the laptop wouldn't turn back on unless I replaced the battery.  I thought the jack or something was broken.
After cleaning/replacing the fan, I haven't had an issue at all, its been a few months.  I can encode video, run graphically intensive programs/games, etc. without an issue.  CPU/GPU temps don't get nearly as bad as they did.
T61 15.4" T9300 (2.5GHz 6MB L2) Windows 7 Professional x64 4GB Memory, NVidia Quadro NVS 140M