I amazed my wife by taking my laptop apart to clean it, and amazed her and myself even more by putting it back together again properly!

The heat sink was only slightly dusty, but the fan itself was considerably worse. I have cleaned them both and now hope that all with be well. I could be wrong but the laptop seems to be running slightly quicker now, and so far the highest fan speed hasn't cut in at all.

I will leave this thread open if I may since the crashes were only weekly / fortnightly. If all is well, this thread will close.

Meanwhile, thank you both very much for your help.

Since I don't smoke and the laptop is only used on a wooden office desk, I think the dust was simply an accummulation over time. The laptop is around 5 years old and this is the first time that crashes have occured.

Should a clean of the fan / heat sink be part of a regular routine, or just done when there are problems?

Mark

I'm sorry to say that, despite a squeaky clean inside, my laptop crashed (black screen) today. It was the first time in almost two weeks and I had hoped the cleaning would do the trick. Apparently not.

Is there anything else a non-techie like me can do to find out what is causing these crashes? If I give it to an I.T. specialist who would no doubt put it on test, a crash is unlikely to occur for days, which would cost me and not solve the problem.

Any ideas?

Thanks again.