Ages ago, when I was living in Ultimo (maybe two years now..?) I was working away one evening on my notebook and I spotted a little cockroach running across the desk.
I tried to squish it, but it was on to me, and ran. It ran behind my computer and I pulled down the screen to get at it, just in time to see it run straight for the CPU fan. It made a surprising amount of noise, first there was the rapid 'thrr, thrr, thrr, thrr' as the fan turned its front legs and face into mush, then there was a 'thwack' as its whole body got pulled in, then a whine as the fan strained to keep spinning.
I noticed that after that my fan had stopped working. It wasn't really ever a problem, because I didn't end up using my notebook much after that time (shortly after my new computer (a server come workstation) arrived). I've had a few problems with it overheating over the years, once or twice, but nothing to worry about enough to go and get the fan fixed.
Last night while installing yanix, my notebook just shut down from overheating. It was smoking. You could *smell* it.
So I got some nail clippers (precision lazer guided nail clippers that is) and had a poke around in the fan. Turns out the fan has been working fine for years, it wasn't *broken* it just had dead cockroach jammed in it and wouldn't spin.
Just think, I've been carrying a cockroach corpse around with me for the best part of two years!
John.
oh my. :P