Dusting off the Dell
My computer is a Dell Inspiron 6400, and it turned five years old last month. It’s been good to me. I replaced the battery once, about two years ago, and the keyboard twice, once under warranty because I broke a key—er, it snapped off—and once because the space bar was getting worn out. Sometime in the past few year years, the left corner of the white trim on the palm rest cracked. Otherwise, this computer has served me well, and it has never let me down.
But it was getting a little old. And slow. And loud. Despite having a cooling mat, the fan was on full blast pretty constantly—especially in Ubuntu, which is a shame considering I use it as my primary operating system these days. After five years, I suspected that a lot of dust had accumulated inside the laptop. Since I’m not a hardware person, I was worried about opening it up—but if I plan to keep it for at least another two or three years, which I would love to do, I want it running at its best.
Last week I finally screwed my courage to the sticking place and went down to Northern Computers to…