"Puck", my laptop, developed a loose connection in its power connector over the past few days so today I set about fixing it. The actual fixing was fairly easy (I just had to unsolder the offending connector, clean and tighten the contacts and solder it back on to the laptop's motherboard) but the process of taking the machine apart and putting it back together again took the best part of the day.
There was an awful lot of dust, fluff, hair and food crumbs in there (the CPU cooler was especially full of dust and fluff which explains why there wasn't as much airflow through it as there used to be). This is why my can of compressed air ran out half way through. Also, I didn't have quite the right screwdrivers for the job, so I left a bit early to pick up Gennie from work and stopped at Fry's on the way.
The CPU must have become really hot at some point in the past because when I removed the CPU cooler (to clean the fan) a small area of the thermal compound had clearly been heated much more than the rest, and was baked right on to the heatsink. I wonder what the part of the CPU directly over that part of the heatsink does... I eventually managed to scrape it all off and replaced the heatsink using some fresh thermal compound. It is running much cooler now (Prime95 has been running for a good half an hour now and the exhaust still isn't burning my fingers). I suspect the thermal contact was never very good in the first place and that the fan now no longer needs to continually run at full speed to stop the CPU overheating.
Amazingly, when I put it all back together again it worked first time. This makes a pleasant change from when I took my previous laptop, "Jack" apart and killed it in the process. In my defense, I didn't know about thermal grease then. It is nice to know that I can fix a laptop.
The fan is still a little bit on the noisy side so I had a look online to see if I could find a replacement (Fry's didn't have anything suitable). There only seems to be one place in the entire world that sells the right sort of fan, and they were sold out. I suspect this particular model of laptop (a Samsung VM8000) often has fans fail. I also had a look on eBay to see if anyone was selling VM8000s (either working or for parts). I found two interesting things - someone selling a working one for £225, and someone was selling one that has exactly the same problem that "Puck" had this morning for £20. So (assuming those are fair prices) I have effectively made £205 (about $400) today. Maybe if I get bored of working for Microsoft I should start a business buying broken laptops, refurbishing them and then selling them. I know that there are people who make a living doing this.