These days, gaming laptops are sleek, powerful, and able to run AAA games with excellent frame rates and graphics. However, enormous power also brings with it a lot of heat. Whether you’re playing Cyberpunk 2077 or working on demanding tasks like 3D rendering or video editing, your laptop’s CPU and GPU, in particular, might become extremely hot. If this heat is allowed to continue, it can slow down your device’s performance, harm internal components, and shorten its lifespan.
So, how do you keep your gaming laptop cool when things get hot? This thorough article contains helpful advice to help you control your machine’s thermals and maintain optimal performance, regardless of whether you’re an esports grinder or a leisure player.
Related: 7 Best Laptops For Gamers In India
Why do gaming laptops overheat?
Before discussing solutions, first, we need to understand why laptops overheat. Multiple reasons can lead a laptop to overheat, and recognizing the reason can help you understand the root cause of your laptop’s substandard performance. Here are some usual causes that make a laptop overheat.
Compact design: Compared to desktops, laptops have compact and travel-friendly design. As a result, there is less space for airflow and cooling components, which can cause the laptop to get hot.
Limited ventilation: Placing a laptop on a soft surface blocks its air vents, trapping hot air inside. This increases the laptop’s temperature.
Dust and dirt: With the accumulation of dust and dart, the vents and fans can get clogged, preventing hot air dissipation.
Hot environment: Using a laptop in direct sunlight or in a hot environment can increase heat inside a laptop.
High performance: High-performance applications and games add more load to the CPU and GPU, heating up their components.
Fan failure: Your laptop can also overheat if its fan is not working.
Outdated software and drivers: Outdated or slow software and drivers overload the processor and draw more energy, causing the laptop to heat up.
Multiple open browser tabs: Keeping multiple browser tabs open needs more processor and memory power. This forces the components to work harder, which causes heat buildup, making the laptop overheat.
How to know if your laptop is overheating?
Now, we know some common reasons for laptops overheating. Here, we will discuss some signs that will tell you that your laptop has an overheating issue. If you notice the following signs in your laptop, you can confirm that it is going through an overheating issue.
- It is hot to touch the laptop.
- Applications run slower or take more time to load.
- The fan makes more noise than usual.
- The laptop causes blue screen errors or shuts down unexpectedly.
- The battery drains faster than normal.
These signs indicate that the laptop has a heating issue, and you need to follow the below steps to cool it down properly.
Why is it critical to maintain optimal temperature in your laptop?
As discussed above, overheating can affect the laptop’s performance and longevity. It will reduce its processing speed and slow down the performance. This will put extra load on internal components and the battery, affecting their lifespan. Also, this can lead to data loss or memory corruption and major hardware issues.
In short, overheating will affect your laptop’s lifespan and lead to premature failure of your device. Therefore, it is important to maintain optimal temperature in your laptop for its longevity, and the following solutions will help you achieve that.
How Do You Keep Your Gaming Laptop Cool? Here are the best solutions
1. Ensure Proper Ventilation
Improper ventilation is one of the major reasons for overheating a laptop, and by improving your laptop’s ventilation, you can overcome this problem. You can avoid using the laptop on soft surfaces like blankets, mattresses, carpets, etc., to prevent blocking of the vents.
Also, you can use a laptop stand to elevate it from the desk and keep the desk clean, as other objects on the desk can block the airflow.
2. Use A High-Quality Laptop Cooling Pad
It is essential for any serious gamer to have a cooling pad. Cool air is pushed into your laptop by this platform, which is essentially a platform with built-in fans. Certain pads feature RGB lights, customizable fan speeds, and even USB hubs for further utility.
A laptop cooling pan should have enough surface area to accommodate your laptop, tilt angles that can be adjusted for comfort and airflow, and quiet, efficient fans for ease of use. The ideal performance of your laptop can be maintained by successfully lowering the device’s temperature to 5 to 10°C using a decent cooling pad.
I think that if you are serious about fixing the heating problem with your laptop, you should choose this option.
Top Recommendations for Laptop Cooling Pads
- Zebronics NC5500D Powerful Laptop Cooler with Dual 125mm Fans
- EvoFox Frost Laptop Cooling Pad with 125mm Silent Fans
- Dyazo Aluminum Laptop Cooling pad | Laptop Stand with Fan
3. Clean Your Laptop’s Fans And Vents From Time To Time
Dust accumulates within your laptop over time, particularly around the fans and heatsinks as well as in the intake and exhaust vents. Higher temperatures and louder fan noise can result from this significant reduction in airflow. Thus, maintaining proper ventilation for your laptop can be facilitated by cleaning this on a regular basis.
You can use a little brush or a pressurized air device to clean the vents. Additionally, you can open the laptop and use a tiny brush or compressed air to clean the internal fans, heatsinks, and other parts. But if it doesn’t void your laptop’s warranty, you can. In order to completely clean your laptop and find any possible causes of the heating issue, you can also take it to a professional service centre.
4. Avoid Using Your Laptop On A Soft Surface
This one is simple to ignore. As cosy as it may feel, using your laptop on a bed, couch, blanket, or carpet is a cooling disaster. Heat loss is prevented by soft coverings that obstruct the underside air vents.
Keep your laptop on flat, hard surfaces, such as tables or desks. Place your laptop on a book, lap desk, or hard tray to maintain airflow if you must gaming on the sofa.
5. Close Background Apps
Fan noise, heat, and CPU use all increase when needless apps are run in the background. Close programs like Adobe Tools, Spotify, Chrome, and any other background applications you don’t require before starting a game.
To save resources and lessen system strain, you can also turn off background services and auto-start apps using Task Manager (Windows) or Activity Monitor (Mac/Linux).
6. Tweak Power Settings
By adjusting the power settings of your laptop, you can lessen the amount of heat generated inside the machine. To do this, you need to head to the Control Panel in your laptop, choose Power Options, select a power saving plan from available options or create your custom plan, and tweak processor power management and display brightness settings.
By adjusting the power settings of your device, you can reduce the heat generation and increase the battery life.
7. Use A Laptop Stand
You may increase airflow even without a cooling pad by just raising the rear of your laptop. The bottom vents are suffocated by the flat position of many laptops on desks. Increased airflow and heat dissipation can be achieved by raising the back using a laptop stand, a few books, or even little rubber feet. Seek out stands with a vented base or mesh to prevent hot air from being trapped underneath.
A laptop stand can also make your laptop more ergonomic, which will relieve shoulder and neck discomfort when you use it for lengthy periods of time.
Top Recommendations for Laptop Stands
- Dyazo 6 Angles Adjustable Aluminum Ergonomic Foldable Portable Tabletop Laptop/Desktop Riser Stand
- Tukzer Foldable Laptop & Tablet Stand Riser for Laptop
- Zebronics-NS1500 Laptop Stand
8. Keep Your Room Cool
Sometimes, outside factors are really important. The cooling system on your laptop must work much harder if your room is hot and stuffy. Try to play in a room with good ventilation, ideally with air conditioning or a fan on.
Particularly during extended gaming sessions, even a little temperature drop of a few degrees might have a notable impact on internal temperatures of the laptop.
9. Keep Your Software And Drivers Updated
Outdated software and drivers play a pivotal role in overheating a laptop, so consider updating your laptop’s software and drivers to the latest version for optimal performance. Updates include bug fixes and performance improvements, reducing load on your laptop’s hardware.
10. Shutdown The Laptop When It Is Hot
If nothing works for you, you can simply give your laptop a break of a few hours to let it cool completely. Then, you can start it, and it should work optimally.
If none of the above steps works for you or the overheating issue doesn’t get resolved, you should consider buying a new laptop that will match your work.
Final Thoughts
Although gaming laptops have a lot of power in a small package, there are heat issues with that power. Whether you are grinding through a 12-hour raid or just playing for 20 minutes, you can maintain a calm and effective system with the correct tools, routines, and upgrades.
There are several strategies to stay ahead of the heat, including using a high-quality cooling pad, maximizing fan speeds, and modifying power settings. Your laptop will appreciate it if you start with the easy fixes and work your way up.
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