Based on a thorough cleaning of the device, my laptop’s fan motor seems to be going out. There’s not much that can be done for that aside from replacing the entire fan, and it then becomes a question of whether or not that is truly cost-effective given the age of the laptop. I’ve begun to look at local pawn shops to see what laptops they have available that would take the RAM that this one has, that way that RAM wouldn’t have been a waste of time to procure (DDR4, 16GB). I would also like to get a computer with a large HDD rather than one with a small SSD, simply because I like having a lot of room on my computer and SSD computers are a lot more expensive than their HDD counterparts for the same amount of space. If the variation in price weren’t as prolific as it was I might (and, trust me, it is), consider being willing to accept a SSD hard drive.

If I can’t find an acceptable, suitable laptop at any of the local pawn shops, I will start looking online.

At least this laptop lasted awhile, even though I had to get it too from a local pawn shop of all places. Heh…

One of the things that I’ve resumed doing is queuing posts, especially when I’m not having migraine activity.

Meanwhile, for some strange reason our laptop’s fan has been a bit louder than it should be. I’ve cleaned the bottom the computer as well as I’m able to, but I think that replacing a fan when it’s soldered to the motherboard is beyond even my expertise with a computer. When that time comes, I think my best bet is going to be getting as affordable of a laptop as I can find to replace this one. This computer isn’t that old, and it’s been taken care of as well as you can possibly take care of a computer, so I’m chalking this up to “bad things randomly happen some of the time”. And based on the location, not to mention my knowledge of computers, I know that it’s the fan. I’ve been price-checking comparable computers in the interim, because we don’t need anything outrageously powerful… just something with the same specifications that this has.

Someone who’s become like a maternal figure to me did walk me through everything that I need to do to clean the fan if I do decide to “take it apart”, and I am thankful! I do software more than I do hardware…

Anyway, requirements for a good computer, at least in this household:
· can get online
· allows the kids to do educational things
· plays the kids’ games