Depends on the laptop honestly. Some of those old Dells had terrible stock paste that dried up in a year, but a lot of machines ran fine for a decade with the factory stuff. People act like thermal paste is magic but the real fix is usually just cleaning out dust bunnies.

Had a buddy who was showing off his new phone to me last year, tap tap tapping away on the screen. I asked why he kept mashing the space bar twice and he looked at me like I was crazy. Said he was just really into periods that day. Took him another six months to realize it was an actual feature and not a weird quirk of his phone. He still brings it up every time we talk about technology.

Wait, is he talking about the heat gun trick for getting old paint off trim or for something else entirely? Did he say what kind of heat gun or just a regular one from the tool aisle?

From one overconfident DIYer to another, that hits a little too close to home.

Blurry photos of the box"? Dang, that stinks. I've had way better luck on archive.org myself.