Not sure about the rest of you guys but it's starting to get warm in
Oakland (finally!) and I have cats.

I noticed something after upgrading from 2GB of RAM to 4GB of RAM -
periodically, and only under very heavy usage (multiple VMWare VMs is
normal, heavy usage means a few DVD::Rip's going full-bore as well), my
laptop would have absolutely lousy performance.

I had a hunch what the problem was, but I didn't have a chance to act on
it until this weekend. Sure enough, when I went to check the cooling
fan's heatsink it had a solid mat of fuzz on it. The cat hair makes a
nice little cross-stitch first, which turns the thing into a filter and
before you know it the heatsink gets no airflow.

Unfortunately, in order to get to the heatsink and clean it you have to
take the machine almost completely apart - no exaggeration - even the
palm rest has to go. It took around 30 minutes, but not having my laptop
step itself down in to "safe" mode is worth it.

That was the only long-term issue I've had with going to 4GB of RAM
(they kick out more heat which surfaced this latent issue), so I'm still
happy with that choice.

Just FYI.

-Mike