Laptop fan making grinding noises? Cheap and easy fix

I recently upgraded my laptop to use a Solid State Disk instead of a hard drive. This makes it very quick and very quiet, but also reduces the total count of moving parts to three;
a) the hinge for the display
b) the keyboard
c) the cooling fan
I don't close the display nor use the keyboard (have an external one) so there is only one moving part in the whole thing; the fan.

Last night my laptop started making horrible grinding noises, so I took it apart, blew out all the dust that had accumulated in the cooling section, and head straight for the only thing that could be making noise;

The fan in question is about 2" across;
http://www.notebook-doctor.com/popup_image.php?pID=2220300

..and from this website I find I can buy a new "thermal assembly" for .. $139. Nice.
This fan costs maybe 75 cents to make, and itself has only one single moving part; the spinning plastic fan blades, which are mounted on a metal shaft with a permanent magnet (there's a fixed set of electromagnets that make it spin). Ok so literally the only surface in the entire laptop that has any wear is where 5mm long metal shaft of the fan blades meets the fan housing, which sits in a minscule bearing; total size maybe 1mm square.

This, of course, was making the grinding noise; dust had got in there.

I cleaned it and put the tiniest drop of cooking oil on it, and now it's silent again. The whole machine should be good for another five years or 315360000000000000 CPU cycles until it needs another single droplet of oil.

If that worked for you, post a comment