My laptop locked up solid the other night in Linux. The CPU had been running a tad hot, and the fan was coming on very frequently, and running for quite a while even when the laptop was just idle, so I suspected it might have something to do with cooling problems. I suspected that the fan and heatsink would be full of cat hair. So, I did what any self respecting geek would do, and took my laptop apart. I had no idea it would have so many screws! After getting it apart, I found very little hair, but did find that it looks like the thermal compound on the CPU heatsink was pretty cooked. I bought some good old Arctic Silver after work today, and proceeded to put my laptop back together. I'm typing on it now, so the good news is that it works! It remains to be seen yet if this actually fixed the problem or not, but so far, I don't notice any ill effects. The temperature does seem to be staying more stable, with the fan coming on less often, and for shorter periods of time, but it's a bit early yet to tell.
In other news, when I got home from work today, my Italian flatmate was just starting to cook dinner, and insisted that I join him. It was quite tasty, some basic Italian food, and the conversation was wonderful. It was really nice to be able to come home and have someone to talk to.
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