Hooray Dell!

Wait, what? Hooray Dell? Dave, have you gone MAD?
Nope! I finally managed to get Dell tech support to acknowledge that the fan in clipper was shot. Last time we went through a service call, the suggested fix was a BIOS upgrade. (Folks may remember the problem was that clipper would overheat doing just basic things, like just sitting in it’s dock, powered on).
As the warm weather came around again, the overheating was getting worse. The laptop couldn’t be used except under extreme circumstances that involved levering up the underside, and placing various fans around it. Hardly optimal.
On Tuesday I settled myself into a long online chat with a Dell technician, and convinced them that yes, indeed, my cooling fan and/or heatsink needed servicing, and could they send someone out please?
The fellow turned up yesterday, and after 2 hours of surgery on my kitchen table, clipper was up and running again.
Since then I’ve used the machine on my lap, in it’s dock, and run heavy duty compiles and testing on it, and I have yet to hear the cooling fan kick up above ‘normal’.
Hooray for field techs! (And I used to be one!)