so like. ive had this laptop for about 5 years now. i got it as a replacement for an older one, because that one was similarly quite old and i was going to need something more reliable whilst the covid pandemic was making everything more remote. this laptop wasnt necessarily anything high tech, but it gets what it needs to do done.

a couple years back, upon rebooting it after a restart or a shutdown, i would be given a message upon startup that there was an imminent hardware error upon my laptop, and around this same time my screen would be flashed with about 5 rapidly disappearing command boxes upon arriving at the home screen, and this has been persistent on every startup since. within the last year, if my laptop was left in a cold environment for too long the fans would make very loud whirring noises upon being turned on that only stopped when they either warmed up or i smacked the top off the laptop enough to knock it off. then, at some point, it would just always make the sound upon startup. alongside this, my f, v, backspace and enter keys began to function erratically, sometimes just not responding at all and sometimes needing to be prompted multiple times (right now i have to have an on screen keyboard to be able to use these keys reliably).

now ive been just putting up with all these things, i figured that getting a new laptop would be pricey and asking someone to fix it might give me an blood clot so ive been just trying to make do with these inconveniences. but as of last week, while i was on holiday in kintyre, the fans whirring would persist longer than usual on startup. then they would randomly start whirring again long after theyd initially stopped. and now, the whirring upon startup doesnt stop, and to top it all off, the laptop is getting extremely hot, near overheating, over absolutely nothing. i restarted my laptop last night in the midst of this, and found that in addition to the usual imminent hardware error message i get, there is now also a message about one of the fans being broken, and that unless i get it fixed my computer might end up getting permanent damage. as much as id like to be, im not all that savvy with computer hardware, so suggestions such as clearing out dust or replacing thermal paste or what have you arent really within my reach right now.

so, all in all, it would appear my computer is on its way out, and from the looks of things im going to need to wait until after i move in about a week's time to get it sorted out. which sucks, because a lot of my day to day activity revolves around this accursed thing.