I have a pretty old laptop - a Dell Inspiron 1150 (2.4GHz processor/1Gb memory). Problem is that it now seems to be overheating in that it shuts itself down without warning, and its underside certainly feels hot to the touch. The fan runs at full tilt much of the time, and if I look at the CPU usage under Windows Task Manager, I often see it at 100% when doing labour-intensive tasks.
Battery (original) has been pretty much shot for a long time (has about
30 mins life and I really only use the machine on mains always).I've dismantled the laptop and checked the fan/CPU heatsink aren't clogged. I've run all the Dell system diagnostic tests and it passes with flying colours.
I've just reformatted the HD and reinstalled Windows plus all its updates, to no avail.
The machine obviously doesn't owe me anything, but for the tasks I ask of it (basically a spare machine around the house used for internet surfing and Office apps) it performs (or did) adequately enough. So am curious as to what's wrong.
My suspicion is that it can't cope with XP SP3 and the *hundreds* of MS patches it now has - is that likely/plausible? Any thoughts welcomed.
Thanks David