Anyone opened their S10?

[BrendaEM]

Hi,

In reading another post...
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1370

... the author mentioned that some S10 have finer screens over their fans.

I'm a little curious whether or not the screen covering the S10 fan exhaust can be removed without removing the motherboard/planer and or the heatsink assembly, in an effort to make the fan quieter.

Thanks,
BrendaEM

[berenpx]

It's easy to open if you follow these service videos (they are for S10e, but I assume the S10 is similar enough)

http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/

On my own S10e I disabled the fan altogether, been running fanless about a month and it's ok as long as I don't stress the CPU at maximum speed. In that case the core temperature can exceed 90 degrees Celsius, too hot for my liking.

On my girlfriends S10e the fan started to rattle after a while, in addition to the irritating fan noise itself.

My girlfriend didn't want to run it fanless, so instead I opened her S10e, took out the fan and examined it. And yes, I could notice that there wasn't enough clearing between the fan blades and the housing itself. Every time the fan stopped, it vibrated enough so that the blades came in contact with the plastic of the housing. Poor design in my opinion.

So I inserted some rubber padding to create some additional clearing, and now it doesn't rattle as least.

Yes, should be easy enough to remove the mesh covering the fan exhaust. I didn't do it myself, but I might try if my girlfriend allows me to violate her precious S10e again

[Morannon]

Hi,

In reading another post...
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1370

... the author mentioned that some S10 have finer screens over their fans.

I'm a little curious whether or not the screen covering the S10 fan exhaust can be removed without removing the motherboard/planer and or the heatsink assembly, in an effort to make the fan quieter.

Thanks,
BrendaEM

Hi!

I tried removing the mesh with a pair of pincers before I took out the motherboard. It didn't work. The pincers just removed a few tiny pieces of the mesh. I recommend taking the whole motherboard out. During my exploration of the comp I must have attached and reattached the motherboard about 10 times. It's easy, just take your time and don't stress.

You can cut away the plastic mesh from the outside with a slim knife if you don't want to open the computer. The fan blades are at least a cm further inside the case. Also the fan has additional protection that you can't see from the outside before removing the mesh. You need to be very very clumsy to damage the fan. But be careful so you don't create a lot of plastic pieces that get inside the case. Have a vacuum cleaner ready. But as I said, I recommend removing the motherboard!

Also, check out my thread how I solved the problem with the noisy fan.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1271&p=10221#p10221

[boke]

I pulled mine apart and removed the plastic mesh.
The fan is definitely quieter now(though mine was fairly quiet to begin with). I have no numbers to prove it, but the system seems to be running much cooler Judging from the 'feel' of the keyboard and lower case temperature.

Allot more air is blowing out out of the fan opening now. That mesh was really restricting it.

[thitiv]

I could notice that there wasn't enough clearing between the fan blades and the housing itself. Every time the fan stopped, it vibrated enough so that the blades came in contact with the plastic of the housing. Poor design in my opinion.

Thanks much, berenpx. My S10 is whirling like madness and I'm so annoyed. I will open my S10 and see if I can fix the fan blades very, very soon!

[thitiv]

I finally opened the S10 last night and did the following:

Fan Upgrade
- Disassembled the fan,
- Cleaned it with WD40-like oil,
- Fully fill it with white lithium grease, and
- Fixed the blade interference issue by "heightening" the housing with 3 pieces of 0.5-mm thick plastic sheets.
I saw traces of the fan interference. There are a lot of scratches at the inner surface of the fan housing.

Thermal Grease Upgrade
Replaced the cheap "insulation" pads between the Intel 945 northbridge chipset + ATOM CPU and the heat sink with Arctic MX2 thermal grease.

Soft / Quiet Mouse Click Mod
As suggested in viewtopic.php?f=11&t=577&start=10#p11188

P.S. The technician at the local service center did the fan and thermal grease things once for me but it was not thorough and neat. I don't think he understood what he was doing when I saw it last night.

Thanks much everyone for providing me with all required information!

[Theatre Booth Guy]

Since my bluetooth module arrived today, it seemed like a good time to take my S10 apart.

First, a word of warning: Tape something over your screen (like saran wrap) to protect it when the keyboard bumps it). Luckily, Lenovo puts an excellent coating on the screen and the "scratches" washed off! Instead of the keyboard scratching the screen, the screen took some of the metal off the keyboard frame!!

Got the mesh pulled off the fan outlet - makes much more air flow. Not sure how much it helps with the sound of air moving and the fan blades spinning.

Took off the heatsink and applied Ceramique. Should have taken a little more time and tried to adjust the clearance to get some actual contact with the heatsink - there is quite a gap between the Atom and the cooler. I'll probably end up redoing this sometime.

If the bluetooth module were the only goal, it would have been rather easy with 4 screws to take out, one plug to attach and five screws to put in. Going to install the RC of Windows 7 so, I'll find out then how useful bluetooth is for me.

For anyone trying this, lay out the screws in the order that they are removed and maybe take a few pictures as things are removed to help get them put back. Also, be gentle.

[vinz]

I could notice that there wasn't enough clearing between the fan blades and the housing itself. Every time the fan stopped, it vibrated enough so that the blades came in contact with the plastic of the housing. Poor design in my opinion.

Thanks much, berenpx. My S10 is whirling like madness and I'm so annoyed. I will open my S10 and see if I can fix the fan blades very, very soon!

I need fan blades too, I want to replace mine.