Barking at shovels

Dude, what a flashback in that first paragraph.

The husband used to have a computer with precisely that sort of issue, and no fan-futzing really helped (it was a flaw in the chip; doh). He'd installed a thermometer on the front so that he could monitor it and shut it down (forgive him for not buying a less heat-prone chip; he was a poor college student). I was using his computer and it started acting...weird...and I noticed the thermometer rising and messaged him that I was shutting his machine down harshly, and then....

....then the computer lost its soul.

That's really the only way to describe it. Instant and total unresponsiveness.

When he came home later and pried the thing open, he discovered a smoking crater where the chip had been.

I support the power-supply-replacement theory.

My computer had the exact same symptoms, same general problem, but for different reasons.

I have a G4 Cube. I got it refurbished from Apple, and when I started using it for more than an hour at a time, it would suddenly put itself to sleep. Eventually, it would shut down.

It drove me nuts. I couldn't figure out why it had a problem.

Finally, I figured it out. I know that the Cube didn't have a fan. However, it never occured to me that the touch sensitive on switch would be sensitive to the metal casing that is underneath the on switch expanding slightly because of the heat. This amounted to almost the same thing as me touching the on switch to put it to sleep.

The fix? A piece of notebook paper the size of a quarter and some scotch tape.

That's awesome.