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[Jack_Bread]

Since summer started, my laptop has been overheating when I play certain games. It's been really starting getting on my nerves and is also probably not too good for my laptop's lifespan.
The games it seems to overheat on have been: Path of Exile, Dota2, Legends of Grimrock, Awesomenauts, and World of Warcraft. It even shut off on League of Legends once on a particularly hot day.

I've been using bags of ice under my laptop as a way to cool it, but because I don't have an automatic ice dispenser, I have to use ice trays, which means I only get to play one of these games a day. Also, it's really annoying getting a laptop to balance on ice, on a mostly broken laptop pillow thing on a couch. I've also had several incidents where I didn't seal the bag all the way or the bag gets a tiny hole in it and part of the couch gets soaked. Ahg.

I want to know about any cheap/free/easy ways to keep my laptop cool.

[GavJ]

- air condition the room if you can
- they sell cheap things just like your laptop pillow you linked, but with simple fans built into them that blow up under your laptop and around it and work pretty well
- an already-owned room fan or box fan blowing on the laptop can definitely help. Use your ice or cold water in a tray for the air to blow over for bonus points. Blowing past coffee filters hanging in cold water works even better. Or $2 hardware store cellulose air filters which even come in their own frames to help you jury rig them onto things (Alton Brown makes an awesome $8 food dehydrator out of them)
- ALL of the above work better if the laptop is suspended a half inch or more further up in mid air. Such as by resting it on 4 oldschool pink school erasers or similar (they have commercial frames too of course)

[martinuzz]

Yea, raising your laptop from the underground, so that airflow can pass under it, is one of the more important things.

Also: with my previous laptop, it took me a few months of wondering why it overheated so fast, before I found out it has a button on top that activates the extra fans, and it defaulted to off.

[Naryar]

If I were you I would put your computer on a metal container containing cold water.

May or may not be practical.

[Jack_Bread]

Thanks for the answers, I'll try raising it up. I don't have any fans that I could use on my laptop, but I'll buy one next month.

EDIT: Just picked up speed fan. Apparently this is it's normal temperature.

I had it go up to 80C on WoW and a moment ago, I was recording and had Dawngate open, it went up to 97C...

[Zrk2]

I prop mine up on hockey pucks.

[nenjin]

How old is it? Might need a good dust purging.

[Jack_Bread]

Little over a year old. I'm not sure how I'd clean any dust inside it... I'd have to look it up. It's been staying steady at 57C so far. Had it down to 40C for a while, but it didn't manage to keep that cool for long.

[10ebbor10]

Yeah, it seems like you might have to clean the fan. I had similar temperatures with my laptop, cleaning the fan reduced average temp by 10-15 degrees, and prevented any overheating.

I cleaned by attaching the vacuum to the exhaust of the fan.

[Jack_Bread]

A vacuum? All my available vacuums(2) are broken. I'll have to wait for next month to do anything to help my laptop, it seems.

[GavJ]

A vacuum? All my available vacuums(2) are broken. I'll have to wait for next month to do anything to help my laptop, it seems.

Are the fans in them broken? Or something else about them?  If the fans are still good, cannibalize one and point it normally like a desk fan and bingo bango bongo, you've got yourself a laptop cooler =D

[Jack_Bread]

I'm not sure, actually. One is old as hell(at least 10+ years or something) and is falling apart and the other has 0 suction power and has had its hose fucked up by people stepping on it.

[Sappho]

Using a vacuum is risky anyway. You can break the fan in the computer that way. Better to get a can of compressed air (they're a few dollars at electronics stores), open the case, and blow out the dust.

[Orange Wizard]

Using a vacuum is risky anyway. You can break the fan in the computer that way. Better to get a can of compressed air (they're a few dollars at electronics stores), open the case, and blow out the dust.

+1

Propping it up for airflow and purging the dust are good step to take. Also try lowering graphics settings on whatever you're running if you haven't already tried.

[Jack_Bread]

So I just purchased a cooling pad, yesterday. It does help a bit, but even with it, my computer still gets super hot. WoW still brings it up to 80+C, which is the danger zone. I feel like using ice would still be a better option than this thing. My graphics are already super low, too. I also forgot to pick up the air can while I bought the cooling pad.

EDIT: Ice keeps it under 80C, but it still occasionally makes its way above that. Might be the weather.