Laptop fan issues

[SyntheticMemory]

Okie, so within the last week my laptop has started acting up....at least it's fan has.
I think it was New Year's eve or something, I can't remember.
Anyway, it started making this weird noise and then it'd just stop running. I sat there for a minute and it started making the noise again.
The noise was a high pitched kind of grinding/squeaking sound.

I think it's dieing on me...but I'm not really sure... x.o;
I'm really not sure what I should do.


Any and all help is appreciated with this.


PS. It's a Dell Inspiron 5100.

Also, it's done this before. I let it sit for about a week and went to boot it back up and the fan was running fine again.

 

[kimsland]

Fan noise is. normal and does not indicate a problem with the fan

From Here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins5100/en/i5100-om.pdf

 

[SyntheticMemory]

I realize that fan noise is normal...but the noise, high pitched grinding, the fan in my laptop makes is not normal.
It gets so bad I can't stand it.
I also realize it's normal for a fan NOT to run all the time.
It'd just be nice that when it did run...it didn't make that annoying sound....and it actually ran normally.

The fan will start up...make that noise for a few seconds, sometimes a couple of minutes, and then it'll stop running.
It's trying to run, but it's like it doesn't rotate enough or something. I don't know.