u/AzerimReddit

Original post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1t80ngn/bought_a_first_thinkpad_and_broke_it_the_same_day/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Some comments applauded me for doing the right thing and ordering a whole new fan.

Some comments told me to solder the broken connector.

So I decided to try to solder it with a friend. I wanted to prepare it today by exposing the wires but they are very fragile, thin and one part is basically in silicon glue. After about 2 hours I thought to myself that this simply isn't going to happen - maybe somebody with awesome soldering skills could connect those two 2 mm stubs, but it sure was not me.

So I changed the plan. While searching for solutions I revisted a video from Gamer's Nexus from 6 years ago where he was fixing that problem, but in a PC fan connector - bigger and no had glue on everything. The video: https://youtu.be/hdp3ZxONwno?is=NYZvcfI1Rq_AJ-bk

So I cut the glue while trying no to cut any of the wires, painstakingly dug out the pin for the faulty cable and simply jammed the exposed cable into that pin.

Then I replaced the thermal paste, connected it all back together and hoped it would work.

Aaaand it did! Now with a slightly bigger benchmark scores so the repaste and fan cleaning did give some minor improvement!

TLDR: Bought laptop - happy. Broke laptop - sad. Fixed laptop - happy.

Original post:

Some comments applauded me for doing the right thing and ordering a whole new fan.

Some comments told me to solder the broken connector.

So I decided to try to solder it with a friend. I wanted to prepare it today by exposing the wires but they are very fragile, thin and one part is basically in silicon glue. After about 2 hours I thought to myself that this simply isn't going to happen - maybe somebody with awesome soldering skills could connect those two 2 mm stubs, but it sure was not me.

So I changed the plan. While searching for solutions I revisted a video from Gamer's Nexus from 6 years ago where he was fixing that problem, but in a PC fan connector - bigger and no hard glue on everything.

So I cut the glue while trying no to cut any of the wires, painstakingly dug out the pin for the faulty cable and simply jammed the exposed cable into that pin.

Then I replaced the thermal paste, connected it all back together and hoped it would work.

Aaaand it did! Now with a slightly bigger benchmark scores so the repaste and fan cleaning did give some minor improvement!

TLDR: Bought laptop - happy. Broke laptop - sad. Fixed laptop - happy.

Bought L15 Gen 2 i5, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD for ~300 USD.

Decided to run some benchmarks that went well, on or above average for that model. Even was quite quiet during the benchmarks.

Decided to service the thermals anyway.

Fan connector was very stuck. Tried wiggling it a bit, pulling and then finally decided to pull by the wires.

I basically bent / cut one of the wires with the tweezers. Got the (broken) connector out later after after some more searching the Internet and pushing with plastic tool on alternating corners.

Possibly the yellow glue (substance?) at the end of the cables got stuck to the motherboard and that made it that hard pull out...

Anyway - I order a 20 USD replacement fan so not looking for solutions, just wanted to share my misery...