Is your laptop running too hot? Before you rush out to get it fixed or replaced, try out these five methods for keeping your laptop cool.
The growth of the tech industry seems to ebb and flow towards smaller devices, then bigger devices, then back againbut in the last few years, when it comes to consumer-level computers, a lot of people have been prioritizing compact size and mobility over raw power.
Laptops have long surpassed the desktop in popularity, particularly among young professionals and students. Even larger number of PC gamers are opting for the mobility of a gaming laptop over the more powerfulbut stationary desktop. Sure, the price points can be vastly different, but with the trend in PC gaming moving towards less-demanding esports titles like League of Legends, Dota 2, Overwatch, and Rocket League [to name a few], even budget-friendly gaming laptops are having no problems running them.
However, anybody who has spent a few hours gaming on a laptop knows that the biggest problem that laptops have is that they run too hot. Its a frustrating problem, and it can take a toll on the hardware in your laptop, too.
While cooling off a laptop isnt nearly as easy as keeping a desktop computer cool, there are some handy workarounds and tricks you can employ to keep your laptop cool. In this guide, well go over five different methods you can use to cool down your laptop and prevent it from getting too hot in the first place.
1. Get A Laptop Cooler
Due to the compact design of laptops, its not uncommon for them to overheat. The compact design on laptops limits the amount of cooling they can have. So, if you can addmore cooling to your laptop, that is going to help your laptop run cooler.
Fortunately, there are a lot of laptop cooling pads on the market, and they work simply enough: a laptop cooler is, in essence, a fan built into a small laptop stand/tray. You place the pad on whatever surface youre using your laptop on, then you put your laptop on top of the pad and turn it on. The pads fan starts to direct air to the bottom side of your laptop, thus cooling it down.
The Tree New Bee laptop cooling pad comes with four 120mm fans to help keep your laptop cool. It costs just under $25 on Amazon.Cooling pads are, thankfully, fairly inexpensiveand they usually do a solid job at keeping your laptop cool during those hours-long gaming sessions. This comes as no surprise, as youre essentially adding an extra fan to the outside of your laptop to promote good airflow.
But if you dont have the money for a cooling pad, you can always just invest in a regular standa tiny little block that you place your laptop on, thus giving it space to let air flow more freely. Many stands are even made of material that acts as a heat sink, like aluminum.
And, though its a much less common solution, you can also invest in an external GPU. They cost a little more than you might be willing to spend, but if youve got the cash to spare, an external GPU will provide older laptops with more power than onboard/integrated graphics, and generate heat away from the rest of your laptops components.
2. Use Your Laptop on A Table or Desk When Possible
Seriously, laptop placement is everything. While lounging on your side in bed is an excellent way to relax, keeping your laptop positioned atop your mound of covers or between your legs on your mattress is hardly the best idea. When it comes to where, your best bet is to set your laptop on a hard, flat surfaceand not on a softer surface.
Use you laptop on a desk or table when possible as placing it on the harder surface will ensure that airflow can travel under the laptop.Floors, even hardwood, arent ideal locations for laptop placement, eithermostly due to the excess of dust particles floating around where you put your feet. Using your laptop on a computer desk or table is ideal, particularly one thats set up in a nice, cool room. Sure, using your laptop wherever you want is one of the biggest perks of owning one, but if youre gaming or doing some CPU intensive tasks, then youre going to need all the help you can get.
3. Keep Your Laptop Clean
Surely this goes without saying, but if your laptop is clogged up with dust and other unmentionable debris, the exhaust fans just arent able to do their jobs. Even if you dont live somewhere where theres lots of dirt or other particles in the air, every square inch of earth is covered in some sort of dust. If you arent a diligent home cleaner, especially if youve got pets, your whole home is filled with dust. That dust is making its way into your laptop through its vents and clogging the whole machine up.
If blowing compressed air into your laptops vents doesnt give you better temperatures, consider taking off the backplate and giving the inside a thorough cleaning.The easiest way to get this job done is to buy a can of compressed air, turn your laptop off and take it outside, then spray short bursts of air into the vents. You can also take off the panels off of your laptop to get better access to the dirtiest areas, but be aware that his might void your warranty, and if you are too aggressive with the compressed air, you could damage components inside of your laptop.
Once youve cleaned out as much dust as possible from your laptop, you can always come back with some dry cotton swabs to get the last little remnants of gunk out of those hard to reach spots.
4. Change Settings on Your Laptop
Believe it or not, there are settings you can adjust on your machine to ensure that its running at optimal temperatures. Aside from ensuring that you purchase a laptop thats able to meet the demands of the games youre playing, youd be smart to check and update your drivers regularly.
Options include lowering your screens brightness, making sure that nothing is plugged in that doesnt need to be plugged in, and closing resource-hogging applications that youre not using. Also double check your laptops power management settings, where youll find a variety of options and pre-determined configurations that will maximize saved energy.
If you want to be doubly sure that your changes are helping, you can always download free software like SpeedFan to actively monitor your computers temperature. Not every fan or piece of hardware on the market has a built-in temp gauge, but you should be able to get a good read on your machines heat output nonetheless.
Also, even though its a much less common problem, you may want to see if your BIOS needs to be updated. There are settings in your BIOS menu that tell your fans at what temperature they should turn on, and newer BIOS versions may have adjusted temp read settings based on the proliferation of video games. If your fans are going to work sooner, it may stave off high temps for longer.
5. Routine Maintenance and Battery/Charger Management
Like any electronic devices, laptops just arent built to last in the way that other products might be. As such, everything inside your laptop is working with a limited lifespan. So, routine maintenance on your laptop is a must. And, while cleaning out your laptop on a regular basis is a part of good laptop maintenance, there are other things that you might want to check on a regular basis to help keep your laptop running as cool as possible.
If your laptop has only recently developed overheating issues, you might just need to replace a faulty fan. You can usually tell if a fans gone bad by the noise its making. Rattling or grinding is a sure sign of a problem, but a complete lack of noise is just as bad. If your system isnt idling but your fans still arent working, they may be broken.
Charge your laptop overnight while it is not in use so that you have as much battery life as possible for the next day. Overcharging will make your laptop run faster and can damage it more quickly.Youll also want to make sure that you dont abuse your laptops charger and battery. One of the easiest ways to break your laptop is to over charge it. On most laptops, the charging jack is soldered onto the motherboard and if it goes out, it will be more expensive to fix than to just get a new laptop altogether. Keeping your laptop plugged in all the time is an easy way to quickly kill the charging jack.
Also, your laptops battery is going to be hotter when it is charging than when it isnt. So, charging your laptop at night after youre done using it and then only charging it while you are using it when you absolutely must, is one way to ensure that your laptop will run cooler.
Ultimately, if your laptop is overheating and you are looking for ways to help it run cooler, the five methods listed above should help you out. If you have an older laptop, though, it might just be time for an upgrade. You can check out the guides below for our top laptop recommendations:
- The Best Gaming Laptops Under $1,000
- The Best RTX 3070 Laptops
- The 7 Best 4K Laptops