The fan's been running a lot more than usual, and there's not a lot of air pushing through the vent. It's a Linux system, so corrupt registry entries are a non-issue and malware is substantially less likely. App overload, on the other claw, is entirely plausible.

Still, I've had these operational symptoms crop up on desktop systems before. Almost every time, I'm sure I've contracted some horrible malware or Os corruption ... and every time, as soon as I blow out the box, it's happy as the day it was new.