Laptop overheating

[Colm]

Lately, my laptop has been overheating a fair bit when I play FFXI. :\ The main reason this irritates me is because the HD or the power supply is right where my wrist sits when I type. Is there anything I can do to really alleviate the problem? Most accessories seem useless. For what it's worth, the laptop sits flat on my desk.

[Shuemue]

Use a desktop at your desk, and buy a cooling pad for your laptop.

[Ezrael]

There is always the simple and cheap way... place something underneath the back edge of you laptop to lift the back of it off your desk slightly. This will help a bit w/ cooling.

Also... Is it hot in your room/house? that could attribute to the overheating too.

[Mayareira]

Some laptops do operate quite hot especially when you run graphics-heavy programs. As in overheating, does it have symptoms like messed up graphics, random reboots/crashes or does it just feel "hot"?

If its only uncomfortable you could use cooling pads or simply elevate it a bit.

[The Stig]

http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID=75004

I use this.

It sucks air from the laptop base and blows it to the side.

Depending on how your laptop fans work it might counteract it, but what I do is that if I'm not playing FFXI, I have the cooling pad on anyway as normal temperature of my laptop running idle is 60 degrees C, with this pad it runs 40 degrees C. If I play FFXI, I simply move the laptop to the side a little so the fan in the laptop isn't working against the pad.

(yes I know 60 is odd but that's what my fan control app says and yes it's regularly cleared of dust. I don't know, it just runs at 60 without the pad...) (Dell XPS m1210)

[Ezrael]

one thing you could try blowing compressed air through the exhaust ports on it... Laptops collect dust just like desktops do... Just not as much.

[Octavious]

If you're playing FF on a laptop I would suggest buying some sort of cooling pad for it to sit on, usually they run $30~ and basically run off USB power to run 2-3 cooling fans. As mentioned already, graphic intensive programs tend to heat up a laptop more than usual business would. The bare minimum you could do would be to purchase a stand or just prop the laptop up, even without a cooling pad of some kind, propping the laptop up shoul aleviate 'some' of the heat. Laptops do run hot at times though, GL. :)

[levish]

Cooling pad + air condition your room

[Azalee]

My brother's girlfriend lifts hers off of the desk by setting 2 old birth control packs under each corner. Just the plastic box that the pills come in, works like a charm.

[Cephius]

Might also help to take apart the laptop (as long as you're comfortable doing that) and blow all the dust out with a can of compressed air. Especially around the fans and the airways that lead to the processor.

[sb]

i sit my laptop on top of an inverted, serrated TV tray. It raises the laptop about an inch above the desk and it allows air circulation. Work like a charm and cost less than 10 bucks.

[Colm]

Blowing compressed air through the vents and propping it up an inch or two seemed to help a lot. Thanks guys.

@Shue: I'm in university, so I like having the option of taking my computer to school if I need to. Plus, I don't know where I'm going to be living and working after school, so I'll probably just build myself a high-end desktop as a graduation present.