The Ideapad series is aimed at consumers and may require more maintenance than the more robust Thinkpad series. Even if you keep your Lenovo Ideapad in the office or at home and use your Ideapad as a desktop replacement, the fans and vents can still accumulate plenty of dust over time. Due to the design of the Lenovo Ideapad series, Lenovo includes a utility that helps the fan "clean" itself. However, if your Ideapad starts running hot, particularly on the left side where the vents are, then it's time to manually clean the fans and vents.
The Z360 has a touch button for the fan.
Symptoms of Overheating
Some of the Ideapads were never designed to be placed on your lap since the build materials really doesn't manage heat very well. Some of the symptoms I've experienced indicating overheating are:
1. The older Core i3 of my Lenovo Ideapad Z360 can run so hot that objects placed close to the vents are affected.
2. The fans switch on more often and are noisier than usual when previously the fans stayed quiet.
3. My well-maintained Windows 7-Lubuntu dual-boot powered down a few times due to heat issues (this was actually also partially caused by the heatwave in Shanghai a few weeks ago).
4. If the tabletop or surface also starts leaving an unmistakeable heat trail, it's time to get a screwdriver, a can of compressed air and a q-tip.
To clean the internal fan of an Ideapad Z360:
1. Power down the system and unplug the power adapter from the rear of the system.
2. Lay the Ideapad face down on a flat surface.
3. Locate the vents on the side of the machine. The fan is positioned next to that area. For the Ideapad Z360, the right panel should be removed to get access to the fans.
Tip: You do not need to fully remove the screws. Loosen the screws with your screwdriver and ease the panel off.
4. Point the can of pressurized air into the vents. The air will blow away some of the dirt and dust bunnies that have accumulated on the fan and vents. The fan will also spin as you send air into the vent.
5. Using a q-tip, carefully clean leftover dirt on the fan blades and parts of the motherboard. Make sure that no dust clumps are left on the ICs, processor and memory.
Note: If the fans are extremely dirty, you can moisten the q-tip a little but do not let the q-tip touch any part the motherboard or other hardware components. Let the fans dry completely before replacing the rear panel.
6. Screw on the rear panel back to its original position.
As a final note, consider installing a free temperature utility for monitoring your system's heat output. There are several freeware available for Windows and several dozen utilities for Linux.
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