I bought my Asus for $800 second hand about two years ago. It works pretty damn well and has probably over heated only half a dozen times during the much warmer months here (average of 92f or 33c for the rest of world, no AC, I use a $20 heatpad and cheap external fan).
Admittedly while I consider myself computer literate. I.e. people come to me for advice on the first things they don't understand; I haven't tried anything regarding hardware modifications or bios. I've only read about this stuff and I'm now finding myself interested in giving it a try!
Anyway it's going to be with me for a little while longer so I figured I get all of my monies worth from it. I'm trying to work within a budget of $600 and don't mind losing anything saved to my laptop. I already know about many of the limitations of using laptops so I know that upgrading any of the hardware components is impossible or just impratical (especially the GPU but that's what desktops are for!).
My questions
-I like keeping the insides of my laptop relatively clean. Is there's a better way to clean out the insides than just blowing a duster can into the fans? I've tried to remove the casing but to really get inside I'd have to rip my keyboard off. Are there any case mods that make this easier?
-I plan on re pasting as much as my laptop as practical. My first problem is I have no experience with this, so I'll probably just pay someone for the labor or is it much easier to do than I think? Also what thermal paste is recommended?
-I plan on upgrading the bios since I'm doing this I also wondering if I should work on updating to windows 8. Does anyone know if it's worth it to do so? Or should I just stick to Windows 7?
-Occasionally ever since I was able to update my graphics drivers to play Bioshock Infinite I've noticed more and more that my GPU (ATI HD 5870) would crash more and more often with games set 1080P. 720P worked perfectly fine but that's no way to play games. With less demanding games at 1080p my GPU just goes to a broken gray screen and eventually restores the image. Is this just a heat issue or early signs of overheating?