quote:

ORIGINAL: sappatoti

This may or may not be the case with Level's machine, but I've noticed that -- especially for older laptops -- running a fully updated operating system with the latest security patches and application updates increases the heat over what the machine produces while running the original OS that it came with.

For instance, I have a 2005 laptop and it ran cool out of the box. Since I have been meticulously updating the OS and applications to their current levels for 2009, I have noticed my laptop running way hotter than normal. So hot, at times, that I cannot lay my palm on the palm rest or use the laptop in my lap.

Curious, I wiped the hard drive and restored the original OS and applications and ran the laptop the same length of time I normally do; it never heated up more than it did when I unpacked it from its box four years ago.

Thinking that perhaps it was a defragmented hard drive that solved the heating problem, I once again wiped the drive and reloaded my latest system backup from a cloned image, but using a file-by-file copy instead of the block copy. I ran the laptop for only an hour before the sucker heated back up to intolerable levels.

Going on the assumption that the latest security and software updates are a necessary evil in this day to protect from things in the wild, I am using auxiliary cooling devices to try to help keep the laptop temperatures down to at least tolerable levels. Since my experiment I've also replaced the hard drive with a much cooler running unit than the OEM (and it's almost double the capacity too) which has helped a bit with the palm rest heat, but it's still warmer than I'd like it to be. (The still usable OEM drive is now encased within an external FireWire/USB2 housing.)

Like I stated, it may not be a common occurrence as a cause for excessive heat buildup but, once the usual physical suspects are eliminated (failing hardware and/or poor ventilation), modern software running on an older hardware platform might be a cause.