Toribash
Original Post
stop laptop overheating! "tips and tricks"
i have 14 years old pentium 4 desktop computer.
when i bought it, lcd monitors didnt even exist on market, and computer came with floppy drive.
most of you probably dont know what is floppy drive
from 2002 to 2010 it was used heavily for gaming.
after all this years it still work flawlessly.
mainly because i clean it every year.
heat is computer's biggest enemy.
when cpu is constantly overheating, it will die.

so once a year, i open it's side panel, use narrow tip of vacuum cleaner to suck in all the dust, then i remove cpu heatsink, clean old thermal paste and apply new.
that's it, that is all it takes to do once a year to make sure your computer will live long.
i do same thing with my laptop.

now, laptops are more prone to overheating.
much more.
since they are complicated to take apart, i don't recommend doing it yourself because usually you have to take apart whole thing to get access to the CPU area to put thermal paste.
it takes skill and if you damage only one little connector or pin or some other tiny part you could fuck up your laptop forever.

but there is something you can do:
  • you can use vacuum cleaner to clean it's vent (where air is coming out). Vent is usually clogged with dust which is blocking hot air to come out, from laptop. Remove vacuum cleaner's head, put it on max and suck the dust out of vent. Also clean vents on down side of laptop too because this is where laptop is taking fresh air from.
  • never put laptop on bed or some other soft surface (especially when gaming), this will block intake vents resulting in fast overheating. It should always be on hard surface such as table. The bigger distance between table and bottom of laptop, the better airflow=better cooling. Best would be using cooling pad, but if you dont have it be creative. Take 4 bottlecaps, and put laptop on it. This will increase clearance under your laptop and should keep it running cooler.
  • install program such as speedfan (it's free) to monitor CPU temperature. If your CPU temperature is above 75 degrees celsius while gaming, then it runs hot. In speedfan's options, set it to show CPU temperature in system tray while program is minimised so you can check temperature while playing. (i advise not to tinker with other speedfan's options because in some computers it can fuck up computer's default fan speeds resulting in mess which can be dangerous for computer, use speedfan only to monitor temperature.)
  • if you're using windows 7 in power options go to your power plans, on the plan you are using click "change plan settings", then click to "change advanced power settings, find "processor power management", expand it, now expand "system cooling policy", and set it on "active" both on battery and plugged in. These settings should be "active" on default but anyway make sure they are.

if you are capable to take apart your laptop to put thermal paste, i recommend you using "arctic mx-2"
it comes in syringe, it may look to be pricey for the amount you get (8$ for 4grams) but it will last for years because it only takes rice bead amount every time you apply it and it's best thing for your laptop. (put it on GPU also)
DONT use toothpaste, i used it once because i was out of thermal paste, it worked great for a week, then it dried up and CPU on my lenovo netbook died not long ago after that. RIP

thermal paste is neccessary to conduct heat from CPU to heatsink, then heat goes through heatsink to the cold side of it which is cooled by laptop's fan.
that's how laptops cooling works.
use this tricks and tips and stay frosty.
--------
one more thing about cooling pads.
cooling pads are great but they don't always work great.
first inspect bottom side of your laptop to check out where intake vents (grills) are.
ideally, this is spot where cooling pad should blow in.
there are alots of different models of cooling pads, so chose one that you think would fit your laptop the best.
if you are not planning on getting cooling pad, use bottlecap trick described in first post.
stay cool.
Last edited by Mongius; Apr 13, 2016 at 01:42 PM.
BACIC
Hey, I am going to move this into the computer and mobile chat section as I feel it is more fit there.

Depending on what mongius thinks of the thread from there will determine its outcome. Make sure to be careful in the future. Thanks!
Last edited by Link; Apr 12, 2016 at 11:11 PM.
Chickster: I literally don't know why I did it.
I was first confused how to handle this thread, but since you've put effort into it, I'll let it live. just work a bit on your grammar, some parts were hard to read.
Got any problems or questions about computers or any other tech?Feel free to PM me any time. Lmod for Computer/Mobile Chat
Thanks you, you make me realize that I really need to clear my fan on my laptop i never do this in 4 year.

never put laptop on bed or some other soft surface (especially when gaming), this will block intake vents resulting in fast overheating

I'm lucky with that my fan is on the side my laptop don't overheating
that fan on the side is exhaust vent, it is where hot air is coming out.
laptops also have intake vents, this is where cold air is coming in to ensure air circulation inside of laptop, and these vents are in most cases on the bottom.
some laptops dont have intake vents on the bottom, but on the side instead.
most of them have intake vents on the bottom side.
but i still wouldn't recommend putting laptop on the bed no matter where vents are located because this way you slow down heat dissipation which results in overheating.

more about cooling what i forgot to mention earlier:
when intel CPU overheat they will automatically throttle down as passive method of cooling down, this will degrade gaming performance.
so if you have intel CPU and start gaming and everything is fine, and after some time game FPS drops, this is because CPU throttled down to cool down.
AMD CPU's dont do this, they just burn until they die.
i owned both of them.
Inside CPU there is alot of pins, and this pins can melt down if heat is high and constant.
in this case you can take it to repair shop to make "CPU reballing"
this method is expensive and doesn't guarantee pins won't melt again.
in most cases it is cheaper to buy new laptop.
BACIC