T60p fan problem

XP Pro, SP3, current updates, ZA, A^2, Lenovo T60p Dual CPU - 2.1 ghz, 3 Gb computer memory, 3 cent operator brain

Some time back I was on here asking if I had a hard drive going bad in my Lenovo T60p.

Not so long ago I heard the thrumming sound again but it stopped after about half an hour.

Yesterday it started in in earnest and last night it was making more noise than ever before. I shut it down over night and when I turned it on this morning it was noisy and apparently during POST it popped up with "Fan Error" in white letters on an otherwise empty black screen. I tried rebooting two more times without the same results then shut everything down.

A couple hours later I pulled the fan and found I could blow through it and it would spin up. Turning it with the tip of my finger it felt very smooth.

Another hour later it was back together and running fine.

Anybody have any idea what's going on here?

 

How Dirty was the fan when you pulled it out?

It's very likely some fluff, hair, or lint was restricting the fans movement triggering a warning.

 

As I said, I blew on it and the blade spun. It wasn't dirty at all. I didn't have to clean it. (I don't take the laptop apart to do that.) I just pulled it out and blew into it and it spun just fine, even spinning a while after I stopped blowing, so it obviously didn't have any kind of obstruction. The only reason I pulled it out was planning to get a new one. It never occurred to me that it would be apparently OK.

This Thinkpad fan is one weird looking apparatus and I wondered if there was something weird about it that might cause weird things to happen. Maybe it's a lube thing.