Hello. I'm running 10.04 Lucid set up perfectly for my needs except the heating up to 103 degrees and shutting down bug that was unresolved last time I checked (ages ago). After recently losing data because of this, I looked into it again and it seems that it's finally fixed in kernel 2.6.35. My current kernel is 2.6.32-53-generic x86_64. I am using a Dell Vostro 1220, Intel 45 Express Chipset, Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500MHD. The only proprietary driver I can see with jockey-text -l is kmod:wl - Broadcom STA wireless driver (Proprietary, Enabled, In use).

I tried upgrading to linux-image-generic-lts-backport-oneiric and to linux-image-2.6.38-12-generic as suggested in this post (including the headers). In both cases I got a black screen after I selected either of those kernels from the grub menu. Same with recovery mode.

I'm wondering if this might be because all my volumes except /boot are on LUKS/LVM? It's been a while since I set them up and maybe I had to do something to the kernel during the setup. So, my questions are:

* If it's plausible that LUKS/LVM is the problem, is there some simple way to upgrade just the kernel without upgrading the whole distro to the latest version and/or reformatting any of the partitions?
* The package manager keeps reminding me that a distribution upgrade to Precise 12.04.3 LTS is available. Is it assuming that I'm not using LUKS and if I take it up on its offer without further steps, will I end up with an unbootable machine? Will a distribution upgrade force me to also upgrade software packages unrelated to the OS or mess with my update-alternatives settings for Java?
* If it is implausible that LUKS/LVM is what's preventing my machine from booting kernels newer than 2.6.32, does anybody have any suggestions on where should I look for more likely causes?

Basically, I don't need to be running a bleeding-edge or even current version of anything. My goal is strictly to solve the overheating problem and get back to work without having to spend several weeks configuring stuff like I had to last time I did a distribution upgrade.

Thanks.