My Problem

I thought for a long time that it was the hard drive that was the problem. A technician suggested it might be the fans making the noise. It sounded more and more like the right thing. I ordered both fans just to be sure to eliminate the problem either it was the left or the right fan.

My Fix

Followed the webinstructions and the sound went away

My Advice

Easy fix to potentially critical problem

My Problem

The left fan started to sound like a lawnmower, nearing death...

My Fix

Followed the instructions on ifixit.com and was done in 10 minutes, easy peasy

My Advice

Make sure to buy the weird star shaped screw drivers that you will need, before trying to open up your mac.

My Problem

Left fan on my macbook pro has was going out. Made the absolute worst noise I have ever heard a laptop make. Was also causing my computer to run hotter than normal due to the fan not spinning properly. I finally decided to fix it after the noise went from a slight rumble to a death scream.

My Fix

The repair was very easy. Took me all of ten minutes to replace.

My Advice

The only thing I can think of in the way of advice is just be sure that when removing the connecter for the fan be sure to pull it straight up.

Also after removing the back cover and seeing all the dust collected in the fans and dust traps I would recommend hitting it with some air duster maybe once a year or something like that.

My Problem

So I thought my 6-month-old hard drive was already going bad. I heard sounded like bad bearings in the platters so I reluctantly ordered a replacement drive, took out the old one, popped in the new one, started up and ... AAH! The noise was still there. Turns out it wasn't the drive but the fan. D'oh!

My Fix

Since I now had a spare (apparently good) drive now, I decided to kill two birds with one stone so I also ordered a Data Doubler kit from OWC so I could replace the optical drive with the hard drive and have 1.5TB of storage to make the ULTIMATE MacBook Pro. Okay, maybe not.

Anyway, the repair went fine. Three screws, zip, zip, zip, out it comes, in goes the new one, put the Data Doubler in, put it all back together, plug it in, start it up... and nothing. Happily I immediately remembered that I forgot to reconnect the battery. Zip, zip, take off the back, connect it and all is good. Back to a nice quiet machine.

My Advice

First, make sure the part you're replacing is the actual part.

Second, if you're going to be opening up the machine anyway, think about other repairs or upgrades you might want to do at the same time.

Third, diagnosis is very important. I wish I'd been able to tell the difference between a failing hard drive and a failing fan, but not sure how I could have avoided this.

Fourth, make lemonade from lemons. The mistake turned out to be a boon of additional internal storage.

My Problem

My left fan started producing some noise and so I cleaned it thinking it'll solve the problem but after some cleaning there were still some noise. I searched and found that it probably has to be oiled but the posts I've found were only for old models of MBP where the fan itself can be disassembled, mine on the other hand cannot.

But I forced disassembling it anyway thinking I could pop-off the fan cap, add some oil in it and put it back. Unfortunately with this Mid 2010 15" MBP release, the fan cap is actually attached to the spindle and there's no way on taking that off without breaking it.

Now I only have my right fan, you can't keep working properly with only one fan. You'll always on the lookout as to how much speed its running and the heat. As a developer, this means I can't run CPU intensive process as these might make the right fan give-in as well.

And so I searched for cheap and reliable apple parts retailer and found quite a few but iFixit makes the most impression. So I placed an order right away and the other week I got my replacement!

My Fix

Repair went smooth, I know already how pop the fans so it was easy as a walk in the park. ;)

After plugging-in the new fan and turning on my laptop, sure enough it was detected and everything works normal.

My Advice

If your MBP's fan model can't be disassembled, don't force it. Mine made an annoying sound but it was still working, by the time I forced pop-off the fan cap and tried putting it back together it wouldn't work anymore.

So a noisy fan is still better than a broken fan... at least until you get a replacement from iFixit that is. :)

My Problem

Sunddenly one of my laptop's fan became noisy. It is summer and hot inside the houses here in France, hence I immediatly decided to change both of them by security without trying to find wich one started to have a break down. Ordered on Thursday, received next Monday => great experience !!

My Fix

I performed changes in less than 10 minutes, because I have the right tools and already undusted fans in past !

Of course, before touching the mainboard, I have disconnected the battery to avoid any electric shock.

My Advice

A soft brush can be very usefull for the first clean-up inside. Of course, perform that very very carefully without pressure : this has to be like a caress ! Then an air-spray is also very usefull, and do not forget to put screws far from the laptop when spraying (lol) ...

I guess that this is a safety method compared to the use of a vacuum, that can dramatically damage components, even more in such laptop !

My Problem

I turn on My mbp almost 24hours per day since I bought it in the mid 2010. Only when I need to carry it around or on vacation that I set it on standby mode or shut it down. Also, I often run cpu intensive application such as matlab. Until recently the left fan kept complaining with very loud rattling sound. So I think it is the time to replace it with the new one. I ordered the fan from ifixit since it is very difficult to find in Japan.

My Fix

I followed the guide from ifixit on how to install the left fan of mbp 15" mid 2010 (http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-M...). The process went very smooth. At first, I thought that it would be difficult to disconnect the fan connector, but gladly that it was very easy by using the spudger. Just slip the spudger from the bottom carefully to detach the fan connector. Within less than 30minutes for sure, the replacement was completed. However, because of my impatient, when I closed the back cover of my mbp I accidently scratched the back body with the screw driver. lol.

My Advice

My suggestion is just do the repair slowly but sure. :)