MacBook Pro 15" Unibody (2.53 GHz Mid 2009) or 17" Unibody (Early/Mid 2009) Right Fan

Mi Problema

The left fan was making a very loud noise. Like the one you hear when you stick a baseball card in a bikes' spoke. But just to be safe I replaced the right fan too even though it wasn't giving me any problems.

Mi Solucion

The repair was very easy. I removed the screws holding the bottom cover then the three screws holding each of the fans in place. I disconnected the power supply and was able to lift the fans out. I replaced the fans and only screwed the screws in just enough to do a check. I turned on the power and the noise was gone. I finished tightening all the screws and replaced the cover. The entire job took me about 15 minutes. It would have been less if I had my repair tools but I don't where I put them.

Mi Consejo

Make sure you have the right tools.

Mi Problema

Fan was overheating after 6/7 years of use, needed to replace and clean it out.

Mi Solucion

Horribly. Broke off the connector being too rough with it. With my DIY attitude I bought a soldering iron and tried to solder it back on, instead I just fried my motherboard. Now I have to buy a whole new laptop.

Mi Consejo

Listen to the directions. When it says lift up gently. You lift up gently. Otherwise you could be playing electrical engineer on your laptop and end up frying it like a regular Dr. Frankenstein.

Mi Problema

I noticed a while back that when watching a movie or using my MacBook for an extended period of time the fan on the left side would begin to get very loud and the left half of my MacBook would get very hot. I downloaded an app called "iStat" which monitors CPU usage, internal temps, fan speeds, etc and discovered my left fan was running well over 5000rpm, while the right fan wasn't working at all.

Mi Solucion

I ordered a replacement fan from iFixit, as well as the tools needed to complete the job. The order arrived within a few days, and I followed the simple step by step guide to replace the fan. It took around 10 minutes, despite the fact that this is my first experience taking apart and repairing any sort of laptop.

Mi Consejo

Follow the step by step guide and you should be fine.

Mi Problema

My MacBook Pro had begun making an intermittent screeching noise after I accidentally dropped it. It only fell about a foot and a half but it was enough to damage something. The noise sounded like the tone of an an old fax machine, almost like the hard drive was girding away at a high pitch. The computer never ran hot and every diagnostic seemed to show everything was working however the noise was driving me nuts.

I started experiencing all kinds of crashes lock-ups and unexplained weird stuff so I figured it HAD to be the hard drive. I replaced the hard drive with a Samsung Solid State Drive 830 Series and increased the RAM to maximum. Incredibly easy to do and I figured the noise would be gone. The MacBook booted up faster than ever and within seconds the noise started up again.

I took off the back off of the computer, laid it in my lap (making sure no keys were getting pressed) and watched the insides of the machine as I turned it on. I was surprised to see the Right fan jerking around but not spinning and the noise was not actually coming from the fan (which was not working properly). The noise was intermittent feedback. You see, the computer kept trying to send a single to the fan to spin. When the fan would spin there was no noise but most of the time the fan didn't work so there was this high pitched feed back noise coming from the computer. Every time the fan would fail the noise would sputter and sound like grinding. When the fan completely failed to turn the noise would remain constant.

Mi Solucion

I ordered a new right fan as well as tools to repair my computer from iFixit.com, followed the installation instructions and process took mere minutes. No more noise and now my MacBook Pro runs faster than ever… and it's completely silent. Repairs were a breeze.

Mi Consejo

Do yourself a favor and do not try to second guess what might be making a noise or causing a problem (Although I am glad I upgraded to a larger SSD hard drive it might not have been necessary in my case). Take a look in the computer and be sure you know what's wrong before you purchase anything. Also, be sure you have all the correct tools to do the job and if you are not sure spend the few extra bucks and get what you need to do the job right.

Mi Problema

At least one of the fans in my unibody MacBook Pro 17 was making pretty horrific noises. I've had this happen before in MacBook Pro systems. The poor little fans give their all and then die.

Mi Solucion

I replaced both fans just to be sure, it took about 2 minutes to get the case open, and about 2 minutes each to swap the fans. I had to open the machine up a second time since one of the fans had a small rattle to it. It turned out the replacement fan had been compressed slightly in shipping. I quick tweak to the fan, reinstall it, and the machine is back running and happy. I was selling it, so it is now on it's way to Georgia to live out it's years running Qlab in a theme park.

Mi Consejo

If your fans are noisy, do the replacement yourself. It should take less than 10 minutes, and it's dead simple.