Signs of laptop dying?

I fear my laptop of 3 years is slowly dying. It's always gotten hot, but I can hear the fan louder alot more recently,and today the music playing in itunes has been skipping alot. No loud ticks I can really notice coming from the HDD though... stuff seems to be slow loading however.


would buying one of those ~20 dollar laptop cooler fans that plug in via USB do any good?

>___> bad thing is,only 1 use is guaranteed to work,the others have always been spotty at best of recognizing devices, I do have a usb multi-hub around here somewhere though

>___> and if I take the AC charger cable off, the screen/computer starts buzzing like crazy, I think a power surge back at my aunt's house fucked it up. Damn 1900's electric wiring. The LCD monitor starts blinking I guess you could call it? It looks kinda like how an interlaced tv signal looks like if you record it on video for example.

I've always just kept the charger cable plugged in it though

have you cleaned it out? dust buildup can cause serious overheating (and fan speed) in laptops.

My OLD~~~~ Vaio laptop (not the one I am using now, this one is from last year), which is bought in 2004, still works.

The problem is that, just like Jr's the fan is makng noises, as if the ball bearing has worn out and its stuttering.

to be honest I've never cleaned the whole thing out,although the environment isn't dusty at all. I don't have a small enough screw driver to un-screw the tiny screws. Next time I go to walmart I'll check out what the price is on em, I always assumed they were kinda pricey for electronic stuff.

I did open up the HDD/RAM bay and there was a little dust awhile back, but I cleaned it out. Oddly the HDD/RAM bay screw was large. The one's I'm talking about are the ones in each corner of the laptop case itself, to be able to dust off the main fan,mobo,etc...

it's quiet right now, but at times can get really loud. I've heard really mixed reviews on laptop coolers, some say it doesn't benefit any since it's draining power from the laptop anyway, some say it lowers temp by 10f (or was it 10c....doubt it >__>)