Windows 7: Laptop Fan Loud while doing NOTHING

I am working on my friends laptop and I cannot figure out how to make the fan stop running all the time! Well at least I think its the fan. It is constantly humming unless its sleeping or turned off.

EDIT: The humming keeps coming and going now that I've posted.

Here's what I've tried so far:

I've gone into the Power Settings via the Control Panel and changed the "System Cooling Policy" under "Advanced Power Options."



It still won't quit running.

I've even gone into the BIOS menu and disabled the option that says "Fan Always On."

I also tried Speed Fan, but there are no options to control the speed of the fans.

It is a laptop.
Specs:
Compaq Presario CQ50
Windows 7 Ultimate x86
Intel Pentium Dual CPU T3200 @ 2.00GHz
3 GB of RAM
320 GB HDD

The PC came installed with Vista but was upgraded to Windows 7. Compaq has the drivers for Windows 7 on their website so 7 IS SUPPORTED by the PC.



Any help is greatly appreciated!!


P.S. I have a Compaq Presario V6000 (also laptop) that was designed for XP, running Windows 7 that is WAY COOLER (temp wise) than my friends is that was designed for Vista.

Hello, it could be the age of the laptop. Have you tried using canned air to attempt blowing out the dust and crap that may have clogged up the fan. Just a thought.

I have not tried blowing it out yet, will try and post back.

Good Luck . . .

That did not help, sadly.

I tried taking the hard drive out to see if it was still rattling, it still was. It is the fan, I just don't know how to stop the rattling.

So I took the entire laptop apart and blew some of the components out and the rattling has stopped for now. I think there was just something loose inside that was rattling when the fan would kick on. So far so good.

The fan running is a good thing. They usually run most of the time, except that they're inherently quiet so you don't notice... until something makes them noisy. Often it's a layer of dust on the blades that makes it wobble, enough to create noise. So a good cleaning is always a good idea. If it's a really old laptop and the noise comes back to stay, it's worthwhile to replace it. They're very cheap... the only tedious thing is swapping (especially on those laptops that are complicated to disassemble).

There was a significant amount of dust on the blades so I think that is what was causing the horrible hum noise.

I really hope I don't have to replace the fan EVER for my friend. This laptop is especially tedious to disassemble. I had to take the keyboard, screen, WiFi card, hard drive, front panel w/ touchpad, and DVD drive out just so I could get to were the fan was. I hope to not have to do that again for a while. The only plus side to doing it, other than getting the hum to stop, is that I can show my friend pictures of his laptop COMPLETELY disassembled, lol.

The rattling has started up again so I think the fan should probably be replaced like cytherian suggested.

Does anyone know where I could find a heatsink assembly for less than $60 from HP's website?

Heatsink assembly p/n: 486636-001

Google is your friend.
Amazon.com: 486636-001