I took out the whole cooling FAN mechanism & cleaned it (I unscrewed it from the motherboard), & am not sure if I replaced it correctly (this is a Gateway 556 GE if this helps). Please, excuse my lack of computer terms. The underside of the silver metal GRID is made with a groove on 2 sides, but is flat on the other two sides. I assumed these grooves were to accomodate the components on the mother board as there are two rows of them; one that goes up, & one that goes across. Am I correct in this assumption, or are these components supposed to be touching the flat sides? Also, since I have cleaned all the dust out of the fan that I could not get to before; it runs 2 - 3 times faster. Is this normal, or should it be slower? I am worried that I do not have it back correctly, & the fan motor will burn up due to it going so fast. Is there something I should do, or is there a way to slow the fan down? It gears down about 3 times after the initial boot up, but STILL seems to be running faster than USUAL. It used to run QUIET; you hardly knew it was on, but now you can hear it time you walk in the room. The computer runs fine; just concerned about the fan/heatsink mechanism. Thanks, BrandonIs this the CPU fan ? ?

If so i don't think you've done it properly...If you could take a few pictures of how the fan is fitted from many directions that would help.

Just checking but have you cleaned off and re-applied thermal paste when reataching the fan?