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My laptop seems to be constantly overheating. I removed unnecessary programs, cleaned the back out to remove dust, I run on minimal programs.
It constantly blue screens. It feels really hot on the back near the fan. When it boots back up, I often get the messages that it got too hot so it turned off. I spent most of last night updating drivers, removing programs etc and still having the same issue.
The only way I've been able to keep it up and running is literally propping it up and putting a big box fan right against it.
The kicker about this, I need to use this laptop for a 30 minute presentation for a job interview later this week. Every time it sits flat on a surface, it will overheat. It is just running Microsoft Word + one other program.
Anyone have any ideas of what I might can do to keep it up and running? Bringing a big box fan to an interview with me is obviously not going to happen.
You cleaned the dust. OK, that's good. (The dust needs to be cleaned inside too - a more challenging task - the heat sinks need to be cleaned too.) Are the fans actually working? Is it possible one of the fans stopped working?
Other vents clogged?
Before you do anything, backup any critical data just in case the whole thing crashes really hard.
Sounds like the heatsink has went bad or the fans that send air to the heatsink has stopped working, which is causing the CPU to overheat and pop up the blue screen of death. Uninstalling programs or updating drivers won't fix this problem. Replacing the heatsink and the fans probably would, but this is a laptop. It isn't quite as easy to replace this stuff on a laptop as it is a desktop computer. Problem is, there could be existing damage to your processor at this point if it continues to heat up and stop working.
My daughter gave me her old laptop when it continually overheated. I blew the vent ports out with compressed air and it never overheated again.
FWIW
YMMV
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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If it's an HP, they were known for that. We didn't go as far as to use a cooling pad, we just propped up the back corners with doorstops and never had the problem again. Unfortunately you cannot use it on your lap top, only on a hard surface.
I bought a reconditioned laptop and it has always run hot (this was my first/only laptop) - I just bought a metal trivet to put under it and used it on a hard surface.
If it's a Toshiba Satellite w/ an AMD CPU, some of those always ran very hot and the cases didn't have enough cooling. Over time the paste dries up on the CPU heatsink and solder joints on the motherboard start to break. Visit the Toshiba forums for more information.
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