[As promised, here is the conclusion to the riveting tale I began in the previous post. Part II will not be as detailed - the feeling of triumph that inspired Part I is gone. Good feelings are fleeting. The ego seems to have a "What have you done for me lately?" attitude about life.]
So there I sat, reconnoitering. Well, not really. I first beat myself up a bit, thinking - you had to go and mess with that fan even though you knew it wasn't going to help anything. You bumbling idiot! Now you've got two problems. Then I proceeded to more constructive thoughts.
Contingency plans begin racing through my mind in situations where it seems I'm getting cornered. I'm thinking, I've got that dinosaur desktop in the other room. I could get online with dial-up access on this DSL account and search for this part. It's a stupid fan. Couldn't be hard to find. Even if the blade is missing, that noise is still there. Perhaps there's no fixing this part, it needs to be replaced.
Still, my stubbornness would not let me go that route. I saw nothing wrong with this piece. A little voice was screaming to me: Lubrication! It just needs a little lubrication! But my big voice was saying: Nah, this isn't a car. Computers aren't oily things. Do you see any sign of oil anywhere? No. If you go and put oil in that part you could totally ruin everything! Shut up, little voice.
But after several more hours of tinkering and microscopic analysis, it was obvious that I was getting nowhere. I had to change my course of action. It was late on a Sunday night, stores weren't open so I couldn't call anywhere to locate the part. I finally decided to get online with the dial-up and ended up struggling for hours with that as I've never used dial-up with this high-speed account.
My ISP's tech support are a bunch of third world monkeys sitting in a third world shit hole, who couldn't care less about helping anyone and are too fucking stupid even if they could bother their lazy, shiftless selves to try. At one point this Latin idiot told me my modem wasn't working and I should contact the manufacturer! Seriously. Another tech retardo told me they don't support Windows 98 - I may or may not be able to connect. I will say no more about this, except that I hate, detest, loathe, abhor every single of one those motherfuckers. Companies who hire them, like my ISP, should be bombed.
Anyhoo... it was 3am, I was tired, utterly defeated and there was nothing more I could do so I crawled into bed, not even bothering to take my clothes off. Then just before I closed my eyes a brilliant idea popped into my head - use auntie's dial-up account! I had that ISP before and knew all the settings. Get her username and password first thing in the AM.
Now it's Monday morning, stores are open. I would first call Fry's or Micro Center. No luck. Then I called some HP repair/parts service. It seems I'd have to replace the entire heat sink and two fans (see image above) - the single fan was not sold separately - $160 and they'd have to order it. $%#%$#@#$@%*!!! I wanted this part NOW!
Time to get online. With auntie's username and password I got connected immediately. Yeah, stick that modem up your dirty ass, you useless piece of third world garbage. Eh, this is how I feel about those third world losers being shoved in our faces and lives - I'm not going to pretend. And until I see evidence that I should change my attitude, it's going to remain this way.
Searching around didn't help me at all. I found the part - $78 - again, the whole cooling unit. I called the company's phone number. The guy said it was on back order and would be at least a couple of weeks. $%#%$#@#$@%*!!! I explained the noise to him and he confirmed that, yes, it was time to replace the part.
Uh huh. The hell with that. I wasn't going to wait, I was going to fix this. GAWD, this dial-up was soooooooo slow - 28.8. I would end up having a nervous breakdown if I had to work with this for any length of time.
Surely, my problem was not unique. There had to be some info about noisy fans somewhere out there. So I searched on something like "noisy fan"+repairing+laptop and...bingo! I stumbled upon this forum where these guys had been discussing the very problem. And their solution? LUBRICATION!!!! Like my little voice had been telling me almost from the start of this ordeal.
I immediately got up, marched straight into the garage, looked around at all the different oils on the shelf and decided on a tiny can labeled "Household Oil". With trembling hands I took everything apart for the umpteenth time, dropped a few drops of oil into the area where the bearing was and spread it all around, then put it all back together again. I didn't care about that missing blade at this point.
The moment of truth. I pushed down the power-on button... and waited... ... Not a screech, not a whimper, not a moan nor a groan, not the tiniest odd noise to be heard. HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! HALL-E-E-E-LU-JAAAAH! Praise God Almighty! Oh, sweet victory was mine. I give all the credit to my awesome God. I always do in these cases because I can tell He's guiding my blind, pathetic self along. He knows that I could not afford to pay for a new part and needing to be online for my work. You would not believe how many times He's bailed me out of bad jams. Thank you, merciful God.
Now if the noise returns, I will take one of the forum guy's advice and use graphite powder and oil. He said it's the best and lasts forever. And thank God for all you wonderful guys! I should get one for myself one of these days.
Here it is, Friday - 5 days of quiet and normal operation. Actually, the laptop is running smoother and quieter than ever since it got a much-needed cleaning - that it would never have gotten had it not been for the crying fan.
The end. (This turned out longer than I expected.)
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