Lately my laptop has been running very, very slow, and the hard drive has been really loud. I used a program to check the temperature that my Hard Drive was running at and it said 135 Fahrenheit! I know that is very high I turned it off right away. I also noticed before I turned it off that there was no air coming out of the vent Fan Dead? I opened the laptop up and took a look inside and I was right the fan was dead, it was not moving at all (this is the CPU fan which is the only fan) So I have no idea how long I have been running it with a dead fan, it could of been as long as 6 months or more. Anyways now to my question would a dead fan, and overheating cause the laptop to run really slow? Oh I forgot to mention that I have recently re-installed Windows did a low-level format the whole bit and it was still slow. Thank You, Jesse

Did the program say the Hard drive was hot? or the cpu? In my experience the cpu fan on a laptop doesnt always operate. but it should kick in when the temp gets too high though. Can you move the fan with your fingers? Some laptops have some sort of heat sink mounted to the northbridge also. a toshiba i recently fixed had a plate with a bendable tab that touch the chip. Evidently some one had pressed so hard on the keyboard that it bent the tab away from the chip resulting in overheating and lock-ups. i re-bent the tab so that it had pressure on the chip and applied some artic silver and the heat plate began doing its job again. BUt if the CPU is overheating try removing the fan and cleaning it out to see if it will free up. if not, you may need to look into buying a new fan for it. Yes heat will definately slow a pc down.

If the fan is dead - best you replace it ASAP!