In the past few DAYS my laptop suddenly shut down twice after couple of HOURS of use.  When it happened the second TIME, I touched the left side of the unit and it felt pretty hot.  I suspect that it is an overheating problem.  So I downloaded and installed PC Wizard utility and ran a test.  After 1 hour of use, the CPU temperature reached 60 degrees Celsius.  Is that too hot?  If I use a regular household fan to blow air toward the laptop, I was able to cap the CPU temperature at 54 degrees.  Right now this fan is able to keep the temperature at 49 degree for at least 15 minutes now. 

I have not seen the small fan/heat sink visible from the back panel move at all; when does this fan run?  The 2 bigger fans visible on the bottom side works.

What is considered overheating and what is considered safe operating temperature for this laptop?  What further steps should I take if it is considered overheating (I already vacuum thru the openings)?  Please help!

Did it shut down when you cooled it by other means? If not, you're going to need ONE of those laptop cooling pads.

And you should reconfigure the laptop BIOS to use less power so that the laptop remains cooler.. As to the non-running fan i would take it to a local service center...laptops aren't exactly designed for owner repairs. Quote from: patio on April 29, 2007, 08:15:08 AM

As to the non-running fan i would take it to a local service center...laptops aren't exactly designed for owner repairs.

Thanks for all your input!  I bought a fan base and trying it out.  It is able to keep the CPU temperature at 53-54 degrees Celsius most of the time.  Is this temperature good enough to keep the laptop working for a couple more years?