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[white_darkness]

Then I linked the right manual.  I still can't find manuals on some OEM websites.  The openness of the information is about the only thing I have to recommend the company.

Typically, there's only one fan sometimes two, mounted to the heatsink, and doing the air intake on most laptops.

Sounds like you should be able to get to it by removing the hinge cover/power button panel, palmrest, and keyboard, though all 3 of them have really annoying and fussy little cables that are annoying to manipulate.

I'd get some thermal compound though if you do go digging in, the heatsink and fan may be one assembly that can't be readily seperated without removing both.

[nenjin]

Ultimately though, a desktop is so much easier to maintain and clean.  Unless it's an Ultra Small Form Factor, those tiny "desktops" are often worse than the laptops.

Agreed. Micro-ATX format can be a huge pain in the ass to work with compared to ATX. I think they actually perform worse in terms of heat as well because you've got all these high-end parts stacked right next to each other and no real clearance. Tends to drive the ambient system temp up.

The only benefit I find to Micro-ATX is if you're LAN gaming every weekend and tired of lugging your 30 lbs. case around.

[white_darkness]

I hate them, an unholy hybridization of laptop and desktop parts with often crap cooling, not to mention those annoying fragile cable sockets and tiny little cables.

Give me the 65 lb desktop that can also double as a heating unit in an emergency (as long as you have power).  Though in the LAN situation, I might want a dolly for a 65 pounder.

[Cthulhu]

Speaking of small computer cooling, you know that bullshit rumor about how you should make sure a laptop's fan can't move before you clean it with compressed air or a vaccuum because the spinning can create "back voltage" or some nonsense that'll break the fan?

Well, uh...

I was getting annoyed by my laptop fan's constant whining and didn't want to take the whole goddamn thing apart to fix it (You have to remove the motherboard to clean the fan on this laptop, real talk).  So I stuck a vaccuum on the intake and sucked all the dust out.  Now the fan's really quiet.  As in, it's not blowing at all.

That alone is cause for worry, but here's where things get mysterious.  It's not hot.  Coretemp has it at a very modest 23 celsius.  It runs fine, I'm using it right now.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Are laptops low-profile enough that they can run at normal settings without cooking the processor, or is something really strange going on?

[white_darkness]

The having to yank the motherboard doesn't surprise me, the design of a laptop internally is typically a nightmare.

The core temp stays low with the fan not in operation though, that leads me to wondering how long you had it in operation.

I know if it's a Dell and you still have the original hard drive, there's a diagnostic partition hidden on it and you should be able to access that via holding the FN key and hitting the power button.  It'll go through some onboard diagnostics then offer to boot to the utility partition (if available).  The utility partition has a fan test section where you can set it on high.

If not a Dell, I can certainly dig around for something similar for a different OEM, but some of them don't offer anything it seems like.

[Cthulhu]

I'm still using it now, about two hours later.  Still 23.  Still running fine.  It's a Compaq CQ60

[white_darkness]

HP has some squirrelly arrangements when it comes to their model numbers.  There's about 200 flavours of the CQ60.

But, this is some sort of web based generic tool which may have some sort of test:  http://h20239.www2.hp.com/techcenter/hp_systemcheck/hp_syscheck.htm

There is however, http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00849402&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en which appears to have a bootable diagnostic CD which will hopefully have an option for testing there.

It can't hurt to check.  Or who knows, maybe you just fixed the problem, and you're not hearing the fan, because it's not needing the fan.

[Tellemurius]

I'm still using it now, about two hours later.  Still 23.  Still running fine.  It's a Compaq CQ60

Stress it with PRIME95 for about 10 minutes and tell me if it gets loud.

[MaximumZero]

Or try genning a world in DF.

[white_darkness]

Actually, that's a rather good use for dwarf fortress.  Just running the game normally maxes out the processor.  Perfect thermal test.

Plus there's the bonus of having fun.

[MaximumZero]

Actually, that's a rather good use for dwarf fortress.  Just running the game normally maxes out the processor.  Perfect thermal test.

Plus there's the bonus of having ‼FUN‼.

FTFY.

[Truean]

Helping an older businessman who is obsessed with apple computers set up a very small computer system, because he's hiring like 10 people locally (I'm not getting paid [sigh]) and I'm sick of living in a place without jobs for people....

Any trick to setting up an Apple Computer I should know about, or any sites with good reading material about it?

[MaximumZero]

Helping an older businessman who is obsessed with apple computers set up a very small computer system, because he's hiring like 10 people locally (I'm not getting paid [sigh]) and I'm sick of living in a place without jobs for people....

Any trick to setting up an Apple Computer I should know about, or any sites with good reading material about it?

Setting up as in...taking them out of the box and turning them on, or networking them, or doing something special with them, or what?

[Truean]

Helping an older businessman who is obsessed with apple computers set up a very small computer system, because he's hiring like 10 people locally (I'm not getting paid [sigh]) and I'm sick of living in a place without jobs for people....

Any trick to setting up an Apple Computer I should know about, or any sites with good reading material about it?

Setting up as in...taking them out of the box and turning them on, or networking them, or doing something special with them, or what?

Out of box, wireless internet, wireless printer if possible. I think he's got a scanner or something but that's pretty plug and play. Odds are, guy has got an IPOD or something too.

I don't think there's much of any "networking" involved. If there is, then he might have two computers he wants to be able to use the same printer on, or maybe access each other's documents. Beyond that, not a whole lot I could ever see really.

[Tellemurius]

If he wants to share files and printer with the computers get a Time Capsule and use that as the network hub for the workplace.