SUMMARY: Question about replacing CPU fan (or CPU heatsink) on a V240.

Hi, all.

Thanks to everybody who responded.

1. I had two people point me to the correct documentation at the Sun web site:
http://dlc.sun.com/pdf/817-4048-13/817-4048-13.pdf. Thanks! My other info was
not sufficient for sure.

2. Per the instructions, you have to be careful about which thermal material
is (a) currently on the existing CPU/heatsink and (b) what is provided with
older vs. newer 440 systems. The documentation is clear about how to proceed
... depending on whether you have the thermal paste or the glue pad. However,
the procedure involves having the processor freshly turned off (i.e, still
hot) in one situation - see the doc - so some experimentation is needed if you
do not know the answer.

3. My new heatsink came with a thermal glue pad, so I planned to use it as a
replacement after cleaning the old material off.

4. From the ten or eleven responses, only one person said that the "replace
the fan" idea would work, since he had recently done this about 4 months ago.
I took that as a good omen later - see next few lines. :)

5. I went looking for isopropyl alcohol around here to clean the surface of
the cpu, but could not find any handy, so I took the risk of removing the old
fan and installing a new one - *without* removing the existing heatsink at
all.

6. The fan is held in place with two screws (not four as I had incorrectly
mentioned earlier), and is fairly easy to remove. Just have to be careful to
move the fan wires out from under the two metal guides on the heat-sink
without moving it around. And you may have to remove some of the memory cards
that are in the way to reach the fan screws.

7. You have to be careful with the small Phillips screwdriver, and you have to
be careful not to drop the screws - our system is rack-mounted, so finding a
dropped screw could have been painful. Fortunately, my dropped screw landed on
top of the small green heatsink next to the fan, so it was an easy retrieval.
Whew!

In any case, the system powered up fine, both CPU fans are now working and the
system is back in operation.

Thanks again, everybody!

Z

-----Original Message-----
From: Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain@aeris.net)
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 11:37 AM
To: sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org
Subject: Question about replacing CPU fan (or CPU heatsink) on a V240.

Hi, all.

CONTEXT:

We received a CPU fan error message on one of our V240 systems. I powered down
and pulled the cover and sure enough, one of the fans (there are two tiny ones
on the CPU heatsink) is sticking and not spinning too well when I move it by
hand or an air can. The other one does fine.

I ordered a replacement, and instead of just a fan, I received an entire
heatsink with two fans, etc. More expensive, but ... okay! FWIW, it appears
that removing and changing the fan may be more pain than needed - there are
four tiny screws that could get stripped, torqued down too tightly to spin, or
come loose, etc.

So, I decided to proceed with changing the heatsink instead. (Although I am
still open to just changing the fan if people feel that is the better
approach).

QUESTIONS:

My experience with changing heatsinks (on Intel windows systems for example)
required cleaning the heatsink and cpu surface carefully, using thermal paste
(Arctic Silver 7 for example) between the heatsink and the processor, etc.,
etc., etc.

Physically changing the entire heatsink appears to be very simple on the V240
from what I can see, *BUT* the instructions I have found do not state anything
about using thermal paste, etc.

	What are the Sun requirements here?
	Will I mess things up by using thermal paste?
	Do they require thermal material?
	Would it be better if I did so?
	Or would be better to simply remove the old heatsink and install the new one
(without any paste, etc.)?
	(Or should I simply attempt to unscrew the fan from the old heatsink and
replace it with a new one from this new heatsink)?

Thanks in advance, and I will summarize.

Z
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