Comment 229 for bug 22336

I'm the owned of an Acer Aspire 1524 laptop, which suffers from this nasty overheating problem. I've gave up on running linux on it and now it runs windows exclusively, installed from the original Windows XP home that was bundled with the hardware.

I've just reinstalled windows on that computer and, following my experience taken from that nasty job, I have to announce something to this group. Here it goes.

This overheating problem isn't a linux bug nor a ubuntu bug. It's a hardware design/support problem, caused by the OEMs themselves and their majestic incompetence.

Here's how I arrived at that conclusion. I've picked up the laptop, I've taken the windows XP install CDs, rebooted the machine, placed the first install CD in the optic drive and started reinstalling windows from scratch. After a couple of minutes into the installation process, the laptop hangs and then crashes. Due to overheating. The laptop crashed while attempting to install the original OS which came pre-installed and bundled with the hardware.

Well, that could've been one of those rare crashes that only happen once in a while. I waited a while for the laptop to cool down and tried again to reinstall windows. Again, it hanged. Again, due to overheating.

Now, that crash could also be caused by faulty hardware. So I ran the install process yet again, this time pointing a hair drier directly into the laptop's air intake. That meant spending about an hour holding a air drier pumping cool air at full blast into the laptop. The install process succeeded and I managed to reinstall windows on that computer. After installing a few applications and anti-virus, I noticed that the laptop wasn't displaying any problems, which seemed weird, following that nasty install process. To sum things up, I've installed a game (America's Army) and gave it a try. Well, the game played smoothly without a single incident for over an hour. In a computer which couldn't even pass the first 5 minutes of the windows XP install process without overheating.

So it seems that's that. It isn't a linux problem after all. It's a hardware design and support, caused simply by the OEM's unlimited incompetence.