Why does my fan on my laptop keep stopping for a second, and starting up again?

The old large Desktops some of us started out with (way back when) were much easier to take apart and clean every now and then. They made and still make small handheld vacs to use for such a chore but the suction is not very powerful. I used one of my small shop vacs with attachments which did a good job of getting the dirt and dust.

Though as already mentioned, this can be a result of an aging device either beginning to lose its heat conduction properties via the heatsink connection or some other similar technical problem with the processor cooling, it's often much simpler than that.

The core issue is that a device in sleep mode isn't turned off, it's just idling at very low power, and can be partially started up by scheduled processes at any time without turning on the display, resulting in enough power use to cause the fan to start if the heat build-up is sufficient to cross the temperature boundary specified in the processor specs.

However, the other factor that many ignore is a far simpler problem that eventually affects most older laptop devices, since they're all quite small with the processors often packaged deep inside the device, leading to heat build-up that has no place to escape.

The simple problem is actually dust, since it often builds up inside the device, especially around the processor heatsink fins or fan assembly, which since that dust build-up is often uneven, can also potentially cause the fan to make more noise if it's running imbalanced as a result.

Though opening and cleaning the entire area around the processor is obviously best, there's an easier way if you aren't comfortable doing this that's nearly as effective. Simply use your vacuum's attachment hose and hold that up to your laptop's fan vent using your hand as the 'adaptor' to try and create as good of a seal as possible between the laptop and hose end.

Doing the above with the laptop turned OFF, since otherwise you're forcing the electric fan to run at a different speed than the electronics controlling it under power, will still actually cause the fan to rotate due to the negative air pressure, but that's good since it also typically spins faster than it normally might, helping to dislodge any dust and allow the suction to draw it out into the vacuum.

This cleaning attempt might not solve the problem, but as long it's done when the laptop's turned off it won't do any damage and will typically make the cooling system operate better even if the entire problem doesn't go away.

Give it a try, in the least it might reduce the noise the fan makes at lower speed and at best maybe give your laptop's processor and fan some extended life as a side effect.

Rob

Hi, thank you for the response. I checked the power plan and it says it is on balanced, but I believe I have changed it as it says "restore default settings for this plan." It is currently on turn off screen after five minutes and sleep after ten minutes for on battery, and never for both plugged in. But I believe the issue may be hardware related. The fan seems to make a weird noise as it's starting up. It sorts of jitters. it only happens while it is sleeping and charging though, not while I'm using it. So it only happens while the fans are down low. Sometimes I will just be doing something and hear a very faint noise, and it turns out to be the fans jittering a few times.

How old is our laptop?

Adding to what DaveM121 said...it is normal for a computer to generate a fair amount of heat and become warm to touch depending on usage. If the fans are running and stopping periodically that sounds normal especially with older computers (and components). Fans that run at high speed continuously and make abnormally loud noises might indicate a problem such as your hard drive causing heat build-up inside the case. It could even be a sign that the thermal paste is wearing out and may need to be replaced.

What are you doing with the computer when this issue starts? Use of several resource-heavy programs at the same time could cause issues like you describe.

Hi, I am Dave, I will help you with this.

There is a thermostat inside your laptop that senses the heat of the hardware and that controls the fans inside your laptop, the fans should only start spinning up when your laptop heats up, it is normal for the fans on a laptop to start and stop regularly to keep the laptop at a stable temperature.

Open the old Control Panel, then set View at the top to large icons, and open Power Options.

What power plan is set in there and what other power plans are available.