Dell Studio 17 - heat problems

OK, before y'all jump on me and say this is a duplicate (https://superuser.com/questions/130181/dell-studio-17-turning-off-suddenly), let me explain...

UPDATE 6-24-10 I have taken the cover off and vacuumed it and the PC many times...i don't see any/much dust, so I don't think that is the issue...it was an issue before, and I cleaned it out really well, and the problem stopped for about 8 weeks...then the problem is back, but I don't have dust? the copper coil that runs near the processor seems to be very, very hot...fans are not running much, and I tried taking out the 2GB RAM stick, and it seemed to run the same/somewhat cooler on the 1 GB RAM stick that was left in...

UPDATE Core temps when doing something memory intensive: Temp1: 63 C. Core 1 & 2: 48-60C, sometimes more...

4-12-2010 I have a Dell Studio 17 laptop, a refurbished model almost 2 years old...It is currently running Windows 7 32-bit, Home Premium. Via a clean install, it is a Vista upgrade machine...A while back, a problem started to develop while running Vista that it would suddenly just turn off. No warnings, messages, anything. It was like I had the battery out, then just unplugged it from the wall. Just like that. Over several months of this happening (or more), I've observed several things...First, it only seems to happen when I'm doing memory-intensive things, such as watching a online video full screen or running many applications in the background...Second, I can tell when it is about to "flip" as I've termed it, when the fan starts running...the computer gets really hot in places...

Anyways, I'm pretty sure this is a hardware problem, because it still exists, even after a Vista-to-7 Upgrade...Is this true? Hardware vs. software?

Is there anything I can do to fix this? Is it just a specific component or what? What do you recommend?

Thanks!!

OK, out of desperation, I decided to disassemble the laptop and take the heatsink out, just in case there was more dust that I was not seeing...I took out the heatsink, and there were a number of dust bunnies preventing the fan from running, which explains why I couldn't see any dust, but it was still not cooling off...so now, I need to find some thermal paste, and put the processor heatsink back together...Thanks for all the help! :-)