Member Avatar for justin288

i replaced my fan ibm t43 fan works if i power it but it wont power its self

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If the fan will spin from an external supply, the motor is fine and the fault is in how the laptop is delivering or switching power to it. Start by treating this as a power-delivery/control issue rather than a bad motor. The T4x service docs and community guides have step-by-step removal and diagnostics that make this safe and repeatable. (thinkwiki.org)

Practical next steps you can do in order:

  1. Remove the fan following the T43 Hardware Maintenance Manual (pages showing the fan/FRU procedure) and inspect the cable and small connector for bent pins, corrosion or broken wires; reseat the connector firmly when reinstalling. (manualslib.com)
  2. With the system powered, measure the fan header with a DMM (DC volts). Place the black probe on chassis/ground and the red on the fan supply pin (take care not to short pins). If you see a steady supply when the fan should be running, the header is supplying power; if not, the control circuitry is not enabling the fan. Use the built-in hardware diagnostics (Access IBM / Diagnostics) rather than running long stress tests without confirmed cooling. (thinkwiki.org)

If the header shows no or intermittent voltage, this often points to board-level issues (bad header, broken trace, blown SMD fuse, or EC control fault). Community reports on ThinkPad series show blown fan fuses (example threads) after fan swaps or shorts — replacing SMD fuses is a board repair job and bridging fuses is risky if you do not know what you are doing. Confirm the correct OEM FRU for your exact T43 variant before buying a replacement assembly. (reddit.com)

Summary: check connector and cable first, then measure the header voltage while using the hardware diagnostics. If no power is present, stop and seek board-level repair or a technician with SMD experience — do not run the machine under load without a working fan. (manualslib.com)

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Member Avatar for caperjack

i replaced my fan ibm t43 fan works if i power it but it wont power its self

hi, not sure exactly what you mean by power itself .
i have seen fan do a lot of things ,never seen one power itself ,i always had to plug them into something . most laptop fan come on for a few seconds when you first boot up ,but shut off until the laptop heats up ,they don't run all the time .

Member Avatar for CimmerianX

The power lead to the fan from the motherboard could have issues. If the fan works if, when out of the laptop, you apply power, but in the laptop never turns on, even at bootup, then it could be a problem with that power connector.....

Are you certain the fan doesn't spin even at bootup?

Member Avatar for 07knev

The fan run depending on heat that motherboard produces.
if it is not heated up the fan does not run.

In order to test that fan working or not is when you boot the machine the fan should run

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