HOW TO: Clean your Laptop's Fan and Heatsink

Laptops may differ in many ways, specifications, size, pricetag, nametag being some of them, but they all share a common problem after a few years of everyday use: NOISE

My guide is on how to dismantle your laptop and clean / service your stock Fan and Heatsink properly, showing the hole process on my old-enough-to-play-with Compaq Presario 2100.
If you have a Compaq or HP laptop, download HP's instructions here.


The hole process takes about 1 hour of step-by-step reading and doing.

Before you start, remove the battery and the Hard Disk Drive (simple task, just a few screws. Then, remove the Keyboard Cover.

Remove the keyboard by carefully unplugging the cable strip from the motherboard.

I suggest you organize the parts you remove in order, each with its screws, so that closing it up at the end will be a simple and fast reverse-step-order.

Remove the Switchboard PCA

Remove the Display Assembly

Remove the screws from the bottom, the rear and the top of your laptop as in the pdf instructions, take out the cables below the PCA you removed earlier so that the top comes off easily, detatch the Touchpad's cable strip and remove the top case

Unplag, unscrew and remove the Heatsink / Fan unit

Start dismantling the Heatsink / Fan unit with a screwdriver and the help of a sharp knife

This dirt causes your noise problem. Start removing every bit of it

Wash this part of the unit with hot water so you clean the air outlets as good as possible, then let it dry or force it your own way

Clean as well as possible the Fan-Part of the unit

Clean at last! Try to clean the left-overs of the stock thermal paste on the heatsink
Clean the stock Thermal paste from your processor and apply carefully a fresh (and better) one

Your are done! Start closing up your laptop in the exact reverse order. When you place the top case, help the cables below the PCA to come to the top.

I hope everything went as expected and your laptop now sounds the same as the first day you got it!