I have a Compaq Presario CQ56.
The computer had worked fine for the last year. Then it got slower and slower, and finally started freezing at random times. It actually got to the point where it was not reliable enough to use.
I took it completely apart to get to the fan. I can't believe I had to take the mother board out of this computer to get to the fan!.
I had to remove the heat sink/heat pipe to get to the screws for the fan enclosure. I removed this huge dust bunny from the fan vent. It was so thick it was like a felt pad.
I cleaned up the heat sink/heat pipe, CPU, and GPU discarding the GPU thermal pad (mistake). I used a silicone based heat sink compound to dope up the GPU and CPU.
After putting the computer back together it ran wonderfully. The fan was much quieter and did not run all the time at full speed.
I was so happy until I tried to play Angry Birds Seasons Demo.
I would get about two minutes of play then the graphics would break up, lines would be across the screen and the computer was frozen.
I then realized my mistake. When working with crappy laptops, with crappy cooling systems, if you remove a thermal pad, you replace it with another thermal pad.
I did not have another thermal pad and getting to the computer store is a pain without a car.
I tried the penny hack and it did not work. It did give me about seven minutes in angry birds before freezing instead of two.
So I guess I will have to wait until I can get to the computer store to buy the thermal pad before I will have a working computer.
At this point I have taken the computer completely apart and re assembled six times.
If that does not work I guess I will have to fork out some dough (pain considering I am unemployed) and replace the mother board and processor. It is just a single Celeron but the mother board will take a dual core Pentium.