Lenovo ThinkBook 13s Fan Problems

Note: This is a post that will hopefully be updated when more information is available. Currently my opinion is: don’t buy this model.

Update on 8th of July 2020: No changes, no updates issued by Lenovo, still problems with the fan and the power settings. For example, setting the fan settings manually in Lenovo Vantage is not possible because the setting goes back to auto in about 30 seconds. Don’t buy this model (if it’s still being sold somewhere, not in our local dealer anymore).

I bought a Lenovo ThinkBook 13s for a family member in February 2020. It is nice size, and moderately priced for an Intel i7-10510U based setup, with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of PCIe-NVMe drive.

First setups and software installations went fine, but after a couple of weeks I realized that every time I saw the laptop its fan was spinning massively.

CPU is idle, fan is spinning. Actually, while writing this post on another computer, the ThinkBook is in sleep mode right besides me (for some 10 minutes at the moment), its device is totally cool, and the fan is spinning to the max.

There is no middle running speed on the fan: it is either off or rotating max speed. No rattling though.

All BIOS and Lenovo Vantage visible settings have been tried, with no change. The BIOS settings have also been reset to factory settings (the only one I changed manually was “hotkey” setting, meaning that the function keys (F1-F12) will work as function keys and not Lenovo hotkeys, without Fn button).

Based on some searching Lenovo is aware of the problem with this model (apparently with other ThinkBooks as well), but they are unable to fix it, for some strange reason.

System information:

• Lenovo ThinkBook 13s-IML
• Model: 20RR0003MX
• BIOS version: CQCN24WW (note: latest downloadable in Lenovo support downloads is CQCN21WW!)
• Windows 10 1909 build 18363.720
• Lenovo Vantage 10.2001.12.0
• Lenovo Vantage Service 3.1.89.0
• All updates from Windows updates and Vantage have been installed

Currently my review is that stay away from this model.