Thinkpads Forum

Good evening.

I am curious, can the cooling fan inside of a ThinkPad be taken apart? For what it is worth, this is a T440p with the basic cooler. I am in the process of modding and customising the hardware and I would like to get the fan hub out, give it a deep clean as it has accumulated dust that a brush cant seem to get out.
Whilst it is out, I also want to spray it a slightly different colour to match the colour of the laptop case instead of the basic black that it comes as.

I know to a lot of people it would not be worth doing or it would be a lot of work for something that will rarely be seen but this is my personal project and I am aiming to do as much as is possible to it.

You can buy replacement fans only, so yes.
Painting it is a bad idea, it will diminish cooling.

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 04, 2025 6:23 am

You can buy replacement fans only, so yes.
Painting it is a bad idea, it will diminish cooling.

Thank you, I'll keep the replacement fan to get it nice and clean.
Why would painting the fan reduce the cooling it would offer? Just to be clear I do only mean the blades/fins of the fan itself and the hub they're all connected to of course. I would have thought a thin coat of durable paint that was applied properly would not have any effect on how much air it can push. I'm not doubting you, I just dont understand how that would change how well it can cool.

im construing u mean the metal heatsink fins/blades which are naturally Copper in color rather than the plastic turbine fins/blades which are already Black. good ol homonyms.

i mean sure do it if u want just expect the laptop to run hotter. you can counteract that by ordering the CPU to run slower. so you will get a slower laptop.

i've heard of people blacking out their cars but i'd have thought thinkpads were already black enough.

as a black enjoyer myself i am curious to see how far you go with this. pls post pics when all is said and done.

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 28, 2025 7:51 am

im construing u mean the metal heatsink fins/blades which are naturally Copper in color rather than the plastic turbine fins/blades which are already Black. good ol homonyms.

i mean sure do it if u want just expect the laptop to run hotter. you can counteract that by ordering the CPU to run slower. so you will get a slower laptop.

i've heard of people blacking out their cars but i'd have thought thinkpads were already black enough.

as a black enjoyer myself i am curious to see how far you go with this. pls post pics when all is said and done.

I do in fact mean the plastic fan blades themselves and the hub they attach to, the only moving part on the cooling setup. I will definitely be keeping the cooling heat sinks the copper colour they came as!

The plastic fin blades are black as you say but I am wanting to colour match the blades to the slightly grey colour of the laptops case. As I wrote in the original post, this is a really small thing that many people would say is pointless, and to a certain extent I would agree, but the small things add up and this is a small thing!

I'll be putting some pictures up of the whole project a little later down the line, I am sure you have replied to another one of my posts so you have probably seen that I have a few things to do on this before its done - but I also have access to two L470's that I'd be able to do what I want to, and the idea of blacking them out is not bad at all

MrDale93 wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 28, 2025 7:23 am

Thank you, I'll keep the replacement fan to get it nice and clean.
Why would painting the fan reduce the cooling it would offer? Just to be clear I do only mean the blades/fins of the fan itself and the hub they're all connected to of course. I would have thought a thin coat of durable paint that was applied properly would not have any effect on how much air it can push. I'm not doubting you, I just dont understand how that would change how well it can cool.

I did this several years ago and I can attest, it made it run HOT - I ended up scrapping it. Too bad I never took a picture.

teamde78 wrote: ↑

Thu May 01, 2025 3:55 pm

MrDale93 wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 28, 2025 7:23 am

Thank you, I'll keep the replacement fan to get it nice and clean.
Why would painting the fan reduce the cooling it would offer? Just to be clear I do only mean the blades/fins of the fan itself and the hub they're all connected to of course. I would have thought a thin coat of durable paint that was applied properly would not have any effect on how much air it can push. I'm not doubting you, I just dont understand how that would change how well it can cool.

I did this several years ago and I can attest, it made it run HOT - I ended up scrapping it. Too bad I never took a picture.

Just to make sure my post is clear - I am not wanting to spray the heat sinks in any way, only the actual blades & hub of the fan itself, the moving part of the cooling system. Is this what you did that made it run hot, or did you spray the actual copper fins you can see through the exhaust holes? I fully intend to leave these as they are

Spraying the fan case makes it more difficult to dissipate heat.
Spraying the fan blades makes the fan heavier and possibly even UNbalance it, either one will cause unnecessary wear.
In other words: don't do it!

I painted the fan blades and fan assembly. both of RBS's statements were true in my case.

It may be better than to paint the laptop the color of the fan blades.

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Fri May 02, 2025 11:26 pm

Spraying the fan case makes it more difficult to dissipate heat.
Spraying the fan blades makes the fan heavier and possibly even UNbalance it, either one will cause unnecessary wear.
In other words: don't do it!

Right, well making the fan heavier or unbalanced is not what I am going for so I'll leave it then. I'll take your advice and not do it!
Still, I may end up searching around for a couple of replacement models to tinker with and see if I can come up with anything unique yet capable of cooling, but the cooling setup that is currently in, I'll leave it as it is.

Thanks for the advice on this one!
Along with making this account to document the work I do to this laptop, the words of advice I am receiving are also something I am after that I appreciate greatly.

teamde78 wrote: ↑

Sat May 03, 2025 7:35 am

I painted the fan blades and fan assembly. both of RBS's statements were true in my case.

I'll not be doing it after reading it can unbalance the fan, this is something I had not thought of - and something that would have annoyed me to no end.
As you have already done it I am curious, can you give me an idea of just how much it affected the cooling performance?

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Sat May 03, 2025 12:37 pm

It may be better than to paint the laptop the color of the fan blades.

On it, I'll have a fan coloured laptop in no time

MrDale93 wrote: ↑

Sun May 04, 2025 3:32 pm

TPFanatic wrote: ↑

Sat May 03, 2025 12:37 pm

It may be better than to paint the laptop the color of the fan blades.

On it, I'll have a fan coloured laptop in no time

post pics once complete