HP Pavilion Fan Error
 

On my wife's laptop got an error yesterday - 90b on startup that says something wrong with cooling fan.

I updated BIOS because it appeared that the fan was working some but it's not working at all now.

I'm looking to purchase a replacement fan but haven't gotten the slightest idea what to even look for. Some say you need fan and heatsink, some say you don't.

It's an HP Pavilion G7 - model A6Z19UA#ABA.

Can anyone lead me where to potentially purchase a good replacement?

How difficult are fans to replace in laptops?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Can't help on your specific problem, but fan allocation is the one gripe I have about my MOBO.

It's Gigabyte and it has 4 fan identical sockets, but it appears that only one is designated 'case fan.' I've plugged any number of fans into the other sockets and shit-all happens. I've been through all the documentation and online support and can't figure out how to get the other 3 sockets to provide power to anything.

So I just went with the processor fan, the video fan, and the single biggest baddest case fan I could find on the shelves at Microcenter, it's like a box fan taped to the top of my PC case. Still have a drawer full of lesser fans that could extend my processor life if I ever figured out how to activate the pins on the MOBO.

Most laptops have some level of integrated fan/heatsink, requiring you to change out the whole thing.

In general they aren't hard to replace though, once you figure out how to get the thing apart. Laptops aren't always intuitive when it comes to cracking the case and exposing the motherboard.

I will say a quick Google of "G7 replacement fan" suggests this might be a common problem.

The first thing I would do is take the laptop apart, expose the fan, and make sure it's not obstructed. I've seen some pretty poor airflow designs in laptops, which generally pull air from the bottom and blow it out the side. This 90-degree angle tends to collect dirt/dust/hair IN the fan itself, leading to heat buildup.

If it's not obstructed and truly not spinning, post back and we'll work on getting you a replacement.

What motherboard model do you have?

I used to be an avid over clocker so I've used a lot of different fan combinations.

After about an hour, finally got it apart. No obstruction - just not spinning.

GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3

2 sys_fan, pwr_fan, cpu_fan

http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/p...3/4276_big.jpg

I got some stuff to do today but I'll take a look at both of these and get back to you guys ASAP.

Just connect the other fans to the power supply?

Also if you don't have appropriate connectors, you can always get adapters for whatever available lines you have coming from the power supply.

Did you check the Bios, I think GB has some voltage and speed controls in the Bios.

Correct.

You can get Molex adapters.

OK, the CPU fan header is definitely a 4-pin header. 3 of the pins are for power and the 4th pin controls the fan speed. Depending on your CPU cooler fan, it may only have 3 pins. This means it has to line up directly with the power leads on the header or it won't spin.

I found the PWR fan header and it's only 3-pin so it should work regardless (although I'm not sure what it's actually used for, I've never used one).

I couldn't find the SYS fan headers (they weren't clearly labeled) but I did find one other header and it was also 4-pin, so the above would also apply to these.

If your fans only have 3 leads, line them up with the power leads and they'll run 100% rpm all the time. If your fans have 4 leads, you have to setup fan speed control in the BIOS most likely.

You're in luck, it looks like most of the HP G7's have stand-alone fans (not integrated directly with the heatsink).

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=hp+pavilion+g7+fan

Very unlikely that 3 fan header are bad and no other problems.

One thing to try is a Bios update.

Speaking of which, and people may not even be aware of what I'm talking about, but I have the System Monitor II gadget, and it'll post CPU temp if you also run the CoreTemp app. But every time I try to run CoreTemp it completely freezes my system, every 2-3 minutes I can get the rick click on the desktop to come up, but nothing else. I have to shut it down via the power button on the case.

http://www.myfavoritegadgets.info/mo...monitorII.html
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/