overheating laptop - solutions?

kianicky

you can get a range of laptop usb cooling pads on amazon. i have one and it works wonders, keeps my laptop really cool.

culpepper

even just raising it off the surface will cool it.
The laptop will be hotter on a warm surface like your legs and needs to let air in through the bottom anyway.
I put mine on a wire cooling rack from the kitchen but even just putting it on a tray or baord lets it run cooler.

Leopard

Before investing in anything, let alone re-clocking your computer, clean out the fan and the vents thoroughly.

You'll also find that putting a narrow bar, or some such, sideways underneath the back of your laptop, to raise it and let air simply circulate underneath it, can help a lot. This has the added advantage of putting the keyboard at a more ergonomic angle.

Are you sure you have enough RAM installed to give your "CPU intensive software" the elbow room it needs without having to use Virtual Memory on a major scale?

timestar

My laptoop sits on a cooler that has a metal grille with fans inside to improve the flow of air. The pad also puts the laptop at a much better angle for working on. It plugs into a USB port on the laptop but also has a USB port in it so that I haven't lost a port. The speed of the fans is adjustable and is pretty much silent on low setting. This is the one I have:

http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/audio-and-laptop-products/zalman-notebook-coolers

aqueoushumour01

Leopard wrote: »

Before investing in anything, let alone re-clocking your computer, clean out the fan and the vents thoroughly.

You'll also find that putting a narrow bar, or some such, sideways underneath the back of your laptop, to raise it and let air simply circulate underneath it, can help a lot. This has the added advantage of putting the keyboard at a more ergonomic angle.

Are you sure you have enough RAM installed to give your "CPU intensive software" the elbow room it needs without having to use Virtual Memory on a major scale?

i've upgraded my laptop to 2gb ram (the max i can put in my laptop). I'll clean out the fan and get a cooler to replace my large external fan on which my laptop is currently resting!

aqueoushumour01

kianicky wrote: »

you can get a range of laptop usb cooling pads on amazon. i have one and it works wonders, keeps my laptop really cool.

before i had only searched for 'chill pads'. cool or cooling pads gives a lot more results on uk sites

weegie.geek

Relatively modern laptops will have speedstep or something similar, where if the CPU isn't working particularly hard, it'll drop the speed and power consumption down, so will use less power, and create less heat.

Check the power settings and see if you have a "low power" setting or somthing similar.

PROLIANT

Magic smoke....:eek: