Russ wrote:
>when you said you touched the CPU and it
>was very hot, did you touch the actual CPU or the heatsink?>>

Thanks for those helpful comments Russ.

The top of the heatsink is hot. Where the fan attaches. It's just a basic 
finned heatsink.

I've refined the problem a bit--looks like something's going into an 
infinite loop, and this is throwing extra load on the CPU.

Without any hardware attached (other than mouse and keyboard) it seems OK, 
so now it's a process of trial and error.
  There's only a printer/scanner and a wireless ADSL modem.

I now suspect the modem, but will make further tests. Could this create 
difficulties, even though it seems to connect to the internet OK?  The 
owner tells me that the troubles seemed to start following a power outage. 
I'm wondering if the modem might have got partly zapped.

I know very little about wireless modems, and don't really want to know!

Don Penlington

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