Processor Problem

[KuroYoma]

I have a Dell Latitude 120L. Just recently my laptop has been acting very strange. After initial boot up everything is fine. About 1 minute in I hear my cpu start to overclock and my cpu fan start to just spin like crazy. I can immediately reboot and it does the same thing, start up ok about 1 or 2 min in it overclocks. And not in a good way. I can't even have firefox open with out huge laging and system slowdown. If I try to load any other resource heavy apps then it freezes. I am not feeling any heat from the processor. I have even gone as far as backing up my personal stuff and did a fresh install of my OS. Still happens. Whats happening to my computer? Anyone know?

[yther]

How long has it been since you cleaned your fans and such?

If things have been fine until recently, there's a chance you are suffering from heat buildup due to lack of cooling. You (or a pro, if you're not comfortable taking your laptop apart) might want to give it a cleaning, to get rid of dust, lint, dog hair, and other lovely things that tend to build up inside computers. Laptops are very susceptible to this because they get used in lots of odd places and there is very little space inside them for air flow.

It could be something else, but that's an idea. Did you make any changes to operating system, do any updates, right before it started?

[KuroYoma]

Actually I have done the cleaning part and there was a build up but I got all of it. I have taken this baby all the way apart and cleaned it. It start with my 8.10 install. I fresh install 8.04 and still had the problem. Updated to 8.10 for the heck of it and still there. I have tried DSL, gOS, gentoo, and ******* but still nuthin. To be frank I am worried that this is a sign of a dieing processor but I am hoping not. I have honestly never heard of a processor slowly dieing. It normally just dies.

[KuroYoma]

Bump

[brdmb]

When you took it all apart, did you get some new thermal grease between your processor and heatsink? It looks like white grease. If not, I'd get some, clean off the old stuff, and put it on. Search for "thermal grease" at your favorite online computer outlet.

A way to test if your processor is actually overheating, if you still have access to Windows, open the calculator and type in "100000000!". If the computer starts acting really weird and slow (or shuts down) it's definitely a thermal issue.

Good luck!