heatwave wrote:Is it possible for a battery to damage my computer simply by swelling up a little?
Mechanically, it is certainly possible. I don't think anything is directly above the battery though. Electronically, anything that it broke would probably just stop working altogether, not run worse.
Using my charging cord instead of my battery for power shouldn't make any difference, right?
Shouldn't, no. I did this for a few months with my old powerbook and it didn't do anything.
How is my fan speed related to performance?
It isn't, at least not directly, read on.
An overheated computer is a slow computer, right?
Basically yes, since your CPU and GPU will throttle themselves down if they pass a certain heat threshold.
Is my fan failing to recognize that my computer is overheating?
It is certainly possible that either the fan control or the fan itself apparently isn't doing its job.
Look for some application that monitors temps and fan speeds for your laptop and see what that says (I know they exist for MBPs, I just don't use one so I don't have a recommendation). Also make sure it isn't just something silly like one stick of your RAM is loose and therefore not being used.
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