Time for a new laptop; advice solicited

My USB fob got corrupted last week. I suspect the culprit is my laptop, luminiferous. I've known for some time it's got a dodgy USB connection, but haven't had any problems with it beforehand. I have now reformatted my USB fob, and if it continues to work, without using it on luminiferous, this will tend to suggest luminiferous is the problem.

In addition to this, luminiferous has a hardware fault that means if it overheats in Linux, it hangs; and in Windows, after you've been using it for a while, instead of the screen staying still and the mouse pointer moving around, the opposite happens. Also, I've reggubed up voth the battery contacts so it now leaks charge (and sometimes fails to charge at all) and the 'phone line connection on the Gold Card (PC card) modem, so I can't go online through dialup; and the Ethernet card (on the same Gold Card) has ceased working properly, so the machine cannot go online at all now through any means.

All of which leads to the conclusion it's time for a new laptop. Now, I don't want to get something new and expensive, as it would be highly nickable, and the whole point of having a laptop is to be able to take it places. I don't mind getting something two or three years old if it means it's cheap, but I don't want to risk buying something on, say, eBay, and not knowing how long it will last.

Does anyone have any sugggestions for what course I should pursue?

What's in a name?: Kruss

Many years ago, in his speech to me at my barmitzvah, my father told me a particular branch of my family, called Kruss (pronounced Kruz), was descended from a priestly clan called the Gabena Kruss, which was the clan from which High Priests were to be chosen when the Temple was rebuilt. (Not that this meant I was thus eligible, as it is not my patrilineal family, but never mind.)

He said the family used to possess a scroll taking its genealogy all the way back to Temple times, but that this scroll was lost when the family was caught between the two sides of the Franco-Prussian War.

( This turned out to be inaccurate, but the real story is also interesting, leading back to the Mishna and forward to an eighteenth-century tome in Hebrew and Latin )