Toshiba Satellite L955-55370 fan dies unexpectedly - Hardware & Software

As the title suggests, my CPU fan decided to die within the last day or so. During a few hours of idle it immediately became stuck in "roid rage" as I like to call it and was sitting at max rpm. Even after several restarts it continued and within 6 hours it was dead completely. I treat my laptop as a desktop, second monitor and all. It never moves as such and is elevated a bit off the desk. Because of that I do not think it was damaged by being banged around. Is it common for fans on toshiba laptops to die randomly? I'm not looking for technical support so much as if anyone knows a good place to find a replacement. I really don't feel like spending 131$ for toshiba to look at it and say "Yep it's broke." then a good amount more for them to slap a new fan in that cost them 4$ to make. I know how to replace it myself, but I'm having trouble finding a place with replacements available. The only place I can find that has decent credibility is [URL="http://www.battery-adapter.com/product_info.php/products_id/508/vSatellite+L955-S5142"]http://www.battery-adapter.com/product_info.php/products_id/508/vSatellite+L955-S5142[/URL] but obviously enough its a bit sketchy and is located in China so it'll take a while to ship. I've checked Amazon, Ebay, etc. but this and a couple of other places seem to be the only ones that have it. Again I'm just looking to see if anyone knows of a good place to find a replacement. Edit: Although if this is fixable (I've looked around and not found much on it.) somehow, that would be nice.

If you take it apart, search the exact part number on amazon

Did you take the laptop apart and look at the fan? Over time the heatsink they blow on collects a mat of dust that looks like dryer lint, which can cause the fan to constantly run at full throttle because there is no airflow over the heatsink fins and the CPU/GPU start overheating. The blockage can become so large that it can stop the blower blades from moving. Just blowing air from the outside exhaust port inwards won't clear the blockage, it'll just break the blockage into chunks that fly around the blower housing and get stuck on the heatsink again or elsewhere. All laptops have this problem, and must be cleaned out at least once every 6-8 months. Some laptops are easy to clean out, while others require pretty much complete laptop disassembly to get to the blower and heatsink. I do think Toshiba laptops have high failure rates for CPU blowers. I've never had to replace a blower in any model laptop other than Toshiba. And they're usually damned expensive because people snap few working pulls from Ebay and such.

Currently in the process of taking it apart. Somewhat of a bitch though as most of the screws are extremely tight/in recessed places. [QUOTE]If you take it apart, search the exact part number on amazon[/QUOTE] Never thought of that. I'll have to try that.