fan problem

hi folks, i suspect this will end up being there is something wrong with your fan, but thought id ask anyway, in case there is a clever solution

i have a HP persario lap top running vista which is just over two years old,

for the past few months ive had an intermittent fan/over heating problem, the fan is general working, if a little noisy, it some times works but is quite rattly, then once in a while doesnt work at all and the comp over heats and knocks off.

this problem can last a couple of hours or a couple of days( on and off, a sort of intermittent intermittent fault). and then rights its self and its fine again for a week or a month

im concerned that one day it wont fix its self and im not im a position at the moment to buy a new lappy or pay for expensive repairs

any idea what it might be ? it strikes me that as the fan works most of the time, it might be a sensor or something similar

ive down loaded speed fan of here, but all it does is tell me when its about to knock off not why

thanks

 

Could be dust build up in the heatsink. Most laptops use a heat pipe to transfer heat from the CPU to a heatsink that has air blown through it and out through the exhaust. Might just need a clean. Check your warrenty as you may still be covered. If not you may need to open it up and give it a good clean.

Other possibility is bearings going int he fan. Replacing the fan is actually not to harder repair and not too expensive either.