I'm a no0b in the forums here and not the most knowledgeable about laptop hardware. I've read on numerous sites that pretty much everyone has the same problems with the PCG-K23 that I've had since August 2004.

The fan sounds like a small aircraft. The underside of my machine gets so hot that it will physically burn me if I put it on bare skin (no joke). I'm well aware of how incredibly bad this is for the guts of my machine but haven't had any money to fork over to a repair-man to get a different, new, or better fan. I'm almost 100% that the heat factor is also directly related to a reoccurring problem I've been having with the blue screen of death. It tends to happen when I'm doing little to nothing on here. Earlier it happened and I was only running firefox with just 1 tab open, and litestep which is my shell of choice. My instinct when I see that screen is to just ABORT and hit the off button, then turn it on a minute or two later, once it's cooled off a bit.

I wouldn't doubt that the mb has been adversely affected by years of this. I'm going to be taking apart my machine tonite to clean out dust and cat fur, which I'm sure has accumulated over the years (see: my cat likes to sleep on it because it's warm xD).

Besides purchasing one of the "cooling rack" things to help disperse the heat away from it, does anyone know of any ways to help remedy these issues? I REALLY love my machine and want to upgrade it rather than buying a new one. I've become very attached, as it was the first computer I ever bought with my own money (see: 2k at Circuit City in 2004).

Please help!
xx
themollusk