Mine has spent it's life on a nice quiet table, so no Levi's lint. ;)

^This fix seems to be holding and the fan is suddenly more quiet. What triggered the problem in the first place, I have no idea.

The recovery option is there. If I roll it back to factory specs, won't I be stuck downloading every XP update and patch that's come down the pike? Had to spend a couple hours updating the old tower PC that had been sitting idle for several months. I don't even want to think how long six years of updates would take!

There's a "Windows Vista Compatible" sticker on the case. Maybe I could upgrade?