If its not the fan I dunno.
Making a live version of Ubuntu is as easy as downloading the iso (disk image) and burning it to a CD-R. It doesn’t have to be done on the damaged computer either.
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
12.04 is the long term support version, sounds like you would need the 32-bit version. Not that I know of course.
Please note the -rom drives seem to have expanded to a size where it’s looking for dvd-rom now.
I don’t get the anti-8.1 on this thread however.
To tell the truth the OS is wonderful. I’m using linux but I’ve got 8.1 and it’s pretty nice.