Every gamer wants to play the latest games at the highest possible visual settings. However, they may find it difficult to keep gaming laptops cool. Keeping the Gaming laptop cool requires a variety of tricks, each effective in different circumstances. This article should include information that is relevant to your circumstances.
It’s frustrating to have a laptop that won’t play games in the manner you want. You may have to choose between playing games at reduced resolution and holding a useless laptop in your hands.
How to Keep a Gaming Laptop Cool and Prevent Overheating
This problem only happens if you overwork the laptop. Even if your laptop can run the games you play, it may become uncomfortable to use.
Then you must determine what is directly impacting your laptop’s cooling system, which is typically dust or a malfunctioning fan. Methods that interact with internal or external components can help keep your laptop cool.
Internally, you’ll need to fiddle with your settings, while outside, you’ll need to locate a cooling method. Cooling pads, the most popular external cooling device, may have a noticeable impact on your gaming laptop’s temperature.
Even direct sunlight and ambient temperature can affect your laptop’s temperature and functionality. The internal cooling system will be able to cope with the heat from inside the laptop better if the surface temperature of the laptop is reduced.
However, the following suggestions will assist you in getting your laptop to run at a lower temperature. They allow you to keep your laptop with you for extended periods while also preventing skin burns.
If you have any concerns about your overheated laptop, you may find the answers here as well. Without further ado, let’s look at some of the most efficient methods to keep your gaming laptop cool.
1. Why It’s Important to Keep Your Gaming Laptop Cool
Your laptop will underperform and have a shorter lifespan if it runs at a high internal temperature. Laptops generate a tremendous amount of heat.
A high-end gaming laptop may generate up to 80°C of heat on average. When the temperature exceeds 80°C, the laptop reduces performance to help manage heat.
If you want to prevent this from happening again, we wrote an article on how to improve your gaming laptop’s performance. Thermal throttling is the term for heat management. So, at extremely high performance, your gaming laptop’s maximum temperature is 80°C.
According to analysis, if your laptop exceeds this temperature, certain internal components may be destroyed. Even before your laptop reaches 80°C, it can become uncomfortable, especially if you keep it near your body.
Placing a laptop on one’s lap is extremely common, but it’s also a highly sensitive area of the body. The heat will be annoying for you, and it may cause your laptop to age more quickly than it should.
In a nutshell, here’s how to keep your gaming laptop cool
- Placing your laptop on a level surface is a good idea.
- Clean your laptop’s vents and filters.
- Use cooling pads for your laptop.
- Apply thermal paste to your CPU once more
- Your laptop should be under-clocked.
- Your laptop should be under-powered.
- Close any applications that you don’t need.
- Make your in-game settings as good as they can be.
- Replace any broken fans.
- Keep your laptop away from heated areas.
- While you’re using your laptop, don’t charge it.
2. Now let’s begin with the detailed reviews
a).. Make sure your laptop is on a level surface.
- Keep your gaming laptop on a level surface to help it stay cool.
- The amount of heat generated by your laptop depends on where and how you place it.
- It would also influence the efficiency of its cooling system.
- If you put your laptop on the bed, for example, the uneven surface may block the laptop’s breathing room.
- This would hinder the laptop’s ventilation mechanism from drawing in enough air from the surrounding environment to keep it cool.
- Meanwhile, putting it on a firm, flat, and clutter-free surface will allow for adequate airflow in and out of the laptop.
3. Clean Your Laptop’s Vents and Filters
- Cleaning your laptop may help it cool down more effectively.
- Your laptop collects dust as you use it.
- Dust clogs the vents, preventing adequate ventilation.
- Although your laptop will get filthy on the outside, most of the dust that causes it to overheat will be inside.
- You have the option to use pressurised air or open your laptop to clean it.
The best choice is compressed air since it avoids voiding your laptop’s warranty and causing harm.
4. Make use of cooling pads for laptops
If the fans seem to be working properly and there’s nothing you can do about the laptop overheating, you might consider purchasing a cooling pad. But what are the circumstances in which you may need to acquire cooling pads?
If your laptop is very old, it may not be able to cool itself properly. It needs assistance. Cooling pads assist in the external cooling of the laptop. A cooling pad is flat and may be used to rest your laptop on. They’re also typically equipped with two to three fans to aid cooling.
They blow against your laptop’s bottom vents to improve its thermal performance and prevent overheating. Even if the temperature is acceptable, some laptop users purchase cooling pads to ensure that their computers operate at even lower temperatures.
The lower the temperature of your laptop, the greater its performance. Aside from your laptop, gaming laptop cooling pads are typically powered by USB or a separate power source.
5. Reapply Thermal Paste to Your CPU
Even laptops that don’t become too hot to handle generate a significant amount of heat. And there are a lot of factors that go into keeping a laptop’s thermal state in check. Thermal paste is one of these items. Zinc oxide and silicon are often used. However, there are three different kinds of thermal paste.
- Ceramic based
- Metal-based
- Silicon-based
To compensate for the heat sink’s flaws, manufacturers use thermal paste between the CPU and the heatsink.
The heat sink should be parallel to the CPU and precisely flat. There aren’t any yet that are ideal. As a result, air traps always form between the CPU and the heatsink.
This area is filled with thermal paste. This aids in the efficient transmission of heat from the CPU to the heatsink. This guide will show you how to reapply your thermal paste:
Make sure you follow the directions closely. If you’re not sure about doing this, we’d recommend starting with the other steps before tinkering with your laptop’s hardware.
5. Reduce the speed of your laptop
When you change your system processors to operate at a lower clock rate than the manufacturer’s standard, this is referred to as under-clocking.
Even when no extra applications are open, your laptop may use more resources than necessary, causing it to heat up and drain its battery faster.
Under-clocking your laptop is your best option if this occurs. To put under-clocking into perspective, you wouldn’t be accelerating your vehicle at high rpm all the time. That’s a guaranteed way to run out of petrol and tear down your vehicle quicker.
Underclocking works similarly; you’ll prevent your laptop from working as hard to match the number of applications you’re using. Because each motherboard has a distinct user interface in the BIOS, you’ll see different options when underclocking.
This tutorial may help you learn more about underclocking.
7. Don’t Overcharge Your Laptop
The process of lowering your laptop’s voltage is known as undervolting.
Lowering the voltage helps your laptop operate cooler, reducing fan speeds and improving overall performance. Undervolting, together with underclocking and reapplying thermal paste, may significantly reduce your laptop’s overheating.
The disadvantage of these three procedures (reapplying thermal paste, undervolting, and underclocking) is that they require you to experiment with hardware and software.
You’ll have to keep fiddling with the parameters until you find the perfect balance. It takes some time, but it is worth it if you have overheating problems.
Follow this advice from The Tech Chap to undervolt your laptop:
8. Exit any programs that aren’t required.
Allowing non-essential applications to run on your laptop may cause it to overheat, making it unpleasant to use. When you use unneeded applications while gaming, your laptop will consume more resources.
- The hotter it gets, the more electricity you consume.
- Ensure that your hardware drivers are up to date.
It’s important to have the latest versions of the device drivers, as they help your laptop run smoothly. Drivers that are out of current or incorrect drivers may degrade performance and cause a laptop to overheat. This is particularly true when it comes to your GPU drivers.
If you use software that uses your GPU (such as video editing or playing video games), having up-to-date graphics drivers should improve performance.
9. Tweak Your In-Game Options
When the settings are turned up, many gamers find that they enjoy the game more. It improves the game’s realism and enjoyment. However, if your graphics card can’t run at maximum settings, this may not be the case.
The games will be laggy. Furthermore, the laptop will get heated and uncomfortable to use. These days, the game settings may be found in virtually every game. However, the location of these items varies per game. It’s only a question of experimenting a little to find out where they are.
While using these options to enhance your game’s visuals, be cautious not to go overboard. Increase your most favoured settings first, then see how your laptop handles the additional workload.
10. Repair any fans that aren’t working properly.
Don’t worry about it. Check the fans on your laptop as well. It’s possible that your laptop’s fans aren’t functioning if it’s overheated. Perhaps a wire has been severed or is sensitive. Your laptop would become intolerable to touch without something to keep the busy CPU cool. Faulty fans are simpler to diagnose by disassembling the laptop until you can see the fan components.
You’ll be able to figure out what went wrong this way.
11. Keep Your Laptop Away From Extreme Heat
It’s important to avoid using your laptop on a bed or other resonant surfaces. Similarly, you should be aware of the surroundings in which you use your laptop. If the environment is hot and stuffy, don’t bring your laptop.
Imagine yourself in a stifling environment where staying on your feet requires all your concentration. The same is true for your computer. At higher temperatures, your laptop and computer will struggle to complete the job you’ve given it and will become too hot to manage.
12. Don’t use your laptop while it’s charging.
When playing a game on your laptop, you’ll need a lot of resources. Because your laptop requires a lot of electricity, the battery drains quickly. Many individuals try to address this problem by plugging in while working. When you charge your laptop while using it, the temperature rises dramatically. So try not to use your laptop for extended periods while it is charging.
This is what happens while you’re charging
The laptop’s temperature is directly affected by the battery, not by charging.
1. This Is An Exception To The Rule
As you charge the battery, it becomes warmer.
Although charging your laptop raises your battery temperature, if you’re gaming, you’ll want to keep your charger connected. Because you plugged in your charger, your laptop will be powered by the wall socket rather than its battery.
In many instances, this will improve your laptop’s performance, but it will also raise the internal temperature. Consider attempting any of the previous 8 steps first if you see a change in performance but still want to keep your laptop cool.
Avoid These Laptop Cooling Techniques
When it comes to cooling down your laptop, there is a lot of misinformation out there. These may work in principle, but they’ll shorten your laptop’s lifespan. If you want to extend the life of your laptop as much as possible, avoid the following methods:
1. Using Ice Packs To Cool A Laptop
- You should never use ice packs to cool your laptop.
- Condensation and moisture will form around the ice pack.
- Moisture will be blown into your laptop by the fan, potentially damaging it.
2. How To Cool A Laptop Without Using A Fan
If the fan inside your laptop isn’t working, you’ll need to replace it.
Never use your laptop without turning on the fan. A cooling pad cannot be used to replace the internal fan. A fan is always required to keep the CPU cool.
3. Laptop Cooling Tools to Consider
Gaming Cooling Pad by TopMate. Cooling pads, as we mentioned in our post, are external devices that may help cool your laptop. Even if you don’t play games, you should buy TopMate’s Gaming Cooling Pad. The laptop cooler can also serve as a cooling stand and features an adjustable ergonomic tilt to help alleviate neck and back discomfort.
It also comes with 5 cooling fans: one large fan in the centre and four smaller fans around it. With various wind-speed settings, the fan speed can be adjusted.
Even better, the laptop cooler works with more than just laptops. You may even place other electrical gadgets (such as your router or game console) on top of the laptop cooler if they become hot.
If you need extra cooling, we suggest buying this laptop cooler since it is straightforward to use right out of the box.
4. MECO Compressed Air Blower with High Pressure
You’ll never need to open your laptop again thanks to the electricity-powered, high-pressure compressed-air gadget. You can simply clean your laptop’s dust filters with compressed air to remove all the dirt from every nook and crevice.
It’s ideal for cleaning your whole gaming setup, or your laptop in particular. A must-have for anybody who values cleanliness.
Most Commonly Asked Questions
- How Do I Keep My Laptop Cool While Playing Video Games?
- Cooling pads are the greatest method to keep your laptop cool while playing games.
- Most gamers have their laptops plugged in while playing.
- This is required to play for extended periods without being interrupted.
Do Gaming Laptops Benefit from Cooling Pads?
- ‘Do laptop cooling pads work?’ is another variation of this question. Yes, in a nutshell.
- Several experiments have been conducted to determine whether cooling pads can reduce the heat generated by laptops.
- And the outcomes are generally favourable.
- Cooling pads may help lower CPU and GPU temperatures by 6 degrees Celsius.
Is it OK for a gaming laptop to get hot?
- Gaming laptops are very powerful, so it’s not surprising that they become hot.
- This does not negate the fact that they should be kept at the lowest temperature feasible.
In general, how can I keep gaming laptops cool?
Keeping your laptop clean and replacing the thermal paste when it dries out is the best way to keep it cool overall.
You may go the extra mile by purchasing cooling pads to keep your laptop as cool as possible.
Final thoughts
You should have been able to substantially reduce your laptop’s temperature by now. The list is significant since it considers both exterior and internal variables that contribute to gaming laptop overheating. Some techniques may take longer and require more work than others, but the effort will be well worth it if you want to extend the life of your laptop. We understand the difficulties of having a laptop that doesn’t operate to its full potential, and if you’ve tried everything below and still haven’t seen any changes…
Then it’s probably time for a change
We evaluated the best gaming laptops for around $1,500, so if you’ve exhausted all of your other choices, these are the laptops we’d suggest. If you have any problems you need assistance with, please leave a comment below and let us know!
If you were able to reduce your laptop’s internal temperature using any of the techniques in this article, please feel free to share it with others.