Predator Helios 300, Fans pulsing?

I am helping my friend clean out his fans in his Predator, and it was extremely gunked up with hair and dust. After doing a thorough cleaning, i reinstalled all the hardware and started it back up. However, the fans were only pulsing rather than spinning continuously. I've tried doing the max setting on Predator Sense, which didn't work. I have checked to see if the fans are spinning, which they are but the CPU fan spins in a pulse, and the GPU fan barely turns at all. Are the fans busted and I need to order and install new ones? Or is this some software issue that I'm not seeing? I have fixed plenty of laptops before in the past, but by no means am I an expert. Also, his warranty is expired, and before the cleaning, it had apparently worked decently, just some thermal throttling. After the cleaning, the temps get crazy high quickly, and i shut it down before it can do any processor damage.

If the model number is needed it is:
Predator Helios 300, N17C1, PH315-51-78NP

On a side note, his "S" key has also stopped working, is there a specific spot where the keyboard cable goes to? I tried looking up a motherboard layout but didn't get much.

Any help would be awesome!

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xapim

dodgercat17 the fans on the predators are very sensitive if not dealt with care im assuming by what was described above they are most probably faulty and need replacing you can try a battery powerdrain press hold for 30s+ then leave it to rest 2/3h to completely drain all power from all capacitors then boot into the bios reset to defaults see if the issue persists if thats the case im afraid the fans were damage somehow on disassembling if this is the case here is the part numbers

Also even after repasting windows should be optimized and undervolted check here and if the S key stopped working check the keyboard connectors (but even if it was the cable the keyboard shouldnt work at all) unless something had short circuited on disassembling it that damaged the fans and keyboard anyway good luck

dodgercat17

xapim said:

dodgercat17 the fans on the predators are very sensitive if not dealt with care im assuming by what was described above they are most probably faulty and need replacing you can try a battery powerdrain press hold for 30s+ then leave it to rest 2/3h to completely drain all power from all capacitors then boot into the bios reset to defaults see if the issue persists if thats the case im afraid the fans were damage somehow on disassembling if this is the case here is the part numbers

Also even after repasting windows should be optimized and undervolted check here and if the S key stopped working check the keyboard connectors (but if it was the cable the keyboard shouldnt work at all) unless something had short circuited on disassembling it that damaged the fans and keyboard anyway good luck

Thanks for the help. I have a feeling that was probably the case. Is there a reputable place to order the fans? Or will any ebay or amazon one with that part number work?

xapim

dodgercat17 well i would usually advise looking on aliexpress but because of the coronavirus everything coming from china its on a stand you can probably contact @Kev0806 he is an authorized parts partner or check their store here but of course if you google the part numbers and find them somewhere else should be just fine those part numbers are acer official from the service guide

dodgercat17

xapim said:

dodgercat17 well i would usually advise looking on aliexpress but because of the coronavirus everything coming from china its on a stand you can probably contact @Kev0806 he is an authorized parts partner or check their store here but of course if you google the part numbers and find them somewhere else should be just fine

Awesome! Thanks a ton. Yeah, I would rather not get sick fixing a buddies laptop so that might be the route i would go. Thanks so much!!

dodgercat17

So good news. The replacement fans worked like a charm. However I did reseat the keyboard but that didn't fix the s key issue. Is there a part number for the keyboard itself? I'm assuming that there isn't a cheap and easy way to just replace the individual switches.

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