Finally, this ancient piece of turd is able to run games more complicated than NetHack thanks to a handy little fix I found on a Google search.

The old Dell Inspiron 600m model is, as many buyers would tell you, a pretty terrible machine. After a few minutes of playing any game that puts even the slightest bit of strain on the laptop, the CPU will temporarily crap out due to overheating, lowering FPS to unplayable levels- as low as 3-5 FPS. Yeah, it does indeed completely suck.

So, what is the culprit? What causes this terrible show-stopping flaw that has to this day remained unsupported and unfixed by Dell?

Simple - the laptop is overheating. It is not dust, nor is it the thermal paste that needs replacing. It's simply a terrible, buggy BIOS.

The BIOS, which stands for Basic Input/Output System, among other tasks, manages the processor and the graphics card of a computer. Usually when a company such as Dell releases a new BIOS, it is good practice to install it. However, in the case of the I-600m, pretty much any BIOS revision newer than A06 is horridly buggy when it comes to managing the resources necessary to play games even marginally complex.

In short, downgrading to BIOS revision A06 has made games playable once again.