Glad to be of service. I'm no expert hardware wise but have bashed my head against a few of the issues that have arisen.
I used Rain on my Dell for about three years to keep it cool and it was fine.
I gave the Dell to my son because the HDD was too small and the processor too slow to keep up with the demands I was placing on it. He's taken it off to Uni to write essays on and is well pleased...its still reliable.
I'm pleased that the Rain successor Cpuidle's feedback is good and will install it on my Tosahiba next week if you are all still happy with it. 😀
I'm not sure that I would buy a Laptop as a prime machine. For all the utility, the upgrade paths are expensive compared to a desktop.
Also, in terms of battery life, I only get an hours productive use away from a power supply. HDD, CDR, processor and cooling fans chew through the batteries and the less you use the power hungry components the better. 🙁