Acer Recalls Aspire Notebooks for Overheat
Microphone cable overheat.

If you're the owner of an Acer Aspire notebook, you may be targeted for a recall.
Acer has issued a voluntary safety recall of certain notebooks manufactured before September 15, 2009 due to overheating concerns.
According to Acer:
The affected units are Acer Aspire models AS3410, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3810TZ and AS3810TZG manufactured prior to September 15, 2009. In the affected units the microphone cable may overheat when extreme pressure is applied repeatedly to the left palm rest. As a result, the unit̉³ case may become deformed and the system may malfunction.
Acer has voluntarily instituted a safety recall program to proactively replace the microphone cable in the affected units to eliminate any risk of overheating.
Hit up this page to check your serial number to see if your machine is part of this recall.
Sounds like your girlfriend is blocking off the airports on the underside of her laptop. Sit the thing on a hard flat surface like a book or lapdesk. Setting the laptop ontop of a pillow, or anything else that will choke off the airflow, and pretty soon that sucker will just die.
Ok, blame it on global warming.
What......do you intend to eat your gpu?
there must be two wires form the mic: one for the mic signal and a ground.
My guess is that it's the ground that is to blame. Repeatedly applying pressure on the ground wire can skin the wire and make a short with a more current demanding live part of the laptop (battery?)
Can't resist this: I get hot, too, on my girlfriend's lap sitting on the sofa in the living room. Can't blame the computer.