40mm fan working in the L400!
Fan mod complete, a fine-toothed saw and a nail file gave two sides the shaving they needed to fit. I ended up having to do some light filing on the palmrest assembly too; a 1mm trim on a 1cm area above the fan. It’s where the topmost leaf of the fan is resting in the pic below. Not a side-blowing fan you might remark – true, but it’s better than no fan at all, the stock fan makes such horrible noise. And hey, even if it sucks it blows…
Fits? A snug fit, not secured but ok. Thanks to the small spaces it’s more or less forced to sit where it is and shouldn’t be able to move around too much. Added a patch of double sided tape underneath, not sure how much contact there actually is between it and the case/felt-pad originally installed. A slight bulge in the upper left corner of the keyboard could not be avoided. Edit: The fan measures 40x40x10 (original size)
Noise? Well, the fanleaves themselves make no discernable noise, there is some kind of little *krrx* coming from what may be miniscule dust (from the filing) stuck in the motor. If I had to do it over again I would enlist someones help and have them vacuum the filings away from the fan as the operation was performed. If the keyboard is screwed down all the way with the leftmost screw the fan starts hitting something. Leaving it slightly unscrewed shouldn’t be an issue.
Fan control? Sketchy as it ever was. Starts when the machine boots and then shuts down, like before. Stressed the 500MHz setting for 30 minutes but could not get fan to start, like before. Restarted and set it att 700MHz = fan runs constantly, as it did before if the system was hot when rebooted. With the new fan that’s not an issue! Testing will continue…
All in all a more or less sucessful mod I’m proud to say 
Oh, and a useful tip to anyone about to adapt two wires into a three-pin connector: Leave a portion of the old cables sitting in the connector! I cut it off right by the white connector and that just makes it irritatingly difficult to stuff new cables in there and securing them with tape. Duh! Just leave some and intwine the red and black cables from old and new and put a little electrically insulating tape around it and it will look neat and professional. If my fan solution works in the long run I’ll sacrifice the second dell fan to get a decent looking connection.
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Having the left side bulge may actually be an improvement. I’d found that when my l400 was left on for too long the left side of the keyboard above the cpu heatsink would start acting wonky (keys not working or keys not pressed sticking on) and my solution was to take off the keyboard and put the screw for the left tab of the keyboard underneath the tab and then screw down the other ones normally. It’s not noticeable when typing or looking at it (unless you’re looking for it) but it has improved airflow and eliminated my problem.
Hiya mate I am thinking of changing the fan on my l400 and I found this fan do you think it is suitable? its 40mm x 40mm x 10mm. Is that the same depth (10mm) as the fan you used with your mod?
I am using this fan because its available locally and 23db.
Cheers.
whoops ! heres the link:
http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=16045
sorry !
40x40x10 is the maximum measurement for it to fit, yes. The only issue is how hard the fan is to adapt, you will probably need to saw of a few corners or more as I did to the fan I found, usually these small fans are dirt cheap so if you mess one up it isn’t a problem… so get two if you want to be on the safe side.
Hi again
I ordered a 5v 4cm fan off ebay and installed it tonight. Almost silent !
Had previously tried a 4cm 12v fan but wouldn’t work at 5v unfortunately so tried a 5v instead.
I snipped off all the plastic except for the circle underneath the motor of the fan. Only took 3 snips, Then I superglued the bottom of the fan to the base of the laptop. I also scraped off the foam on the bottom so the fan sits lower.
Had to file a bit off the top of “keyboard rest” like you said in the blog mate.
The fan seems a lot better than the previous 3cm standard one. I am thinking of drilling a few small holes below the fan so it can draw in extra air from below the laptop. Good idea ?
Cheers.
Yeah the original Dell fan is just awful.
Re further modifications – the holes underneath could be a good idea as the fans we’ve both installed are intended for vertical ventilation while the old fan worked horizontally. As my current setup is enough for me and works for now I haven’t done any other modifications.
I would say that it can be good to make sure you don’t make modifications that hinder future uses, for example I think you may have to remove the fan completely to be able to remove the system board completely? Maybe your stripped fan is small enough to fit in the hole for the fan though. Think through the modifications twice and then do them, but hey if the computer just cost a few quid then you’re free to experiment as you please
Hey mate mind telling me which fan you ordered?