[DJ Iron Mike]

Well, I did my NYE gig and it went very well. I use my laptop to run most of my systems and this morning when I took it out of it's carry bag, it wouldn't boot. It wouldn't post, It would only blink the green light at me. I really don't know much about laptop computers, but having built a couple of behemoth desktop computers, I figured well, I'm going to have to figure out why the laptop won't work. My particular laptop is a Compaq 700 series, which is known to have design flaws in it and occasionally an operating system flaw. This machine for me has been one of my most reliable pieces of equipment since I bought it in 2001 and I wasn't about to give up on it. The laptop's specs are windows XP sp2 AMD Duron 1.3 ghz chip. standard memory, standard HD and it has been a wonderful machine. It's out of warranty now though due to it's age. I figured I was going to have to crack it open and take a look around inside it. I found that the AMD chip had no compound on it. I was always told to put compound right smack in the middle of my AMD chips. I had to go to Radio Shack to by a tube of this compund called "heat sink compound" which is used for heat dispersal. I had it on all my desktop chips but this computer had never seen any.
I put a little dab on the middle of the chip, closed it back up and re-booted it. The computer sprang to life and I just saved myself over $1,000 in buying new laptop.
I love AMD chips, I've always known they run hot and now with this litte dab of heat sink compund placed on the center of this chip, I'm back in business.