Both fans (almost) screwed up

[haziqmir2]

Starting a month or so ago, my 15" mid-2012 MBP starting making loud whirring noises and I suspected it to be the HDD and made a backup for everything just in case it failed. I decided to take a look for myself inside the Mac and turns out it is one of the fans (the left one) that's making these loud noises. The right one is alright. I was thinking of running the MBP on one fan, the right one, for now till I get a replacement for the other. However, I probably put in too much force and popped off the clip using which the fan is attached to the board. I have no experience with soldering stuff onto things (which is what I think you have to do). So I don't know what to do. Should I run the Mac on the noisy fan for now till I get a replacement?

I live in a rather remote region, and it's hard to get customer service for Apple products.

 

[Queen6]

You will need find a specialist in electronics repair, as soldering the connector to the board is not straight forward if you don't have the necessary skills. As for running on one fan, it`s possible however the computer will be far more prone to overheating and it will automatically reduce performance to prevent damage. The damaged (noisy) fan will run for sometime, however it will completely fail in time. Any competent repair shop should be able to replace the fans, I would change both to save problems later on.

The micro connectors are fairly fragile and it`s important that you are familiar with how the male & female connectors separate, as you can see applying force is not the solution. ifixit.com offers some very detailed teardown/repair guides, equally some technical knowledge/experience is assumed.

I would also speak with Apple and see what they can do, it may be possible to send the computer by courier to them for repair, although this will be the most expensive solution, as Apple may well want to replace the Logic Board due to the damaged connector.


Q-6

 

[andreyush]

Can you tell me how much you paid to replace the fan?