How To Prevent Your Laptop From Overheating [Windows 7]

[visualbuffs]

A few months back, I bought a new Core i3 laptop, hoping to run more resource intensive applications and games with better performance. While most of the applications seem to run without any issues, I have been dealing with a few thermal heating issues while playing games or running encoding tasks. For some odd reason, even reducing the affinity of the application or the game, does not eliminate the heating problem. I even bought a cooling pad, and tried switching to lower graphic options, but that, too, has resulted in minimum heat reduction. After going through many methods of reducing system heat up, it appears that there is only one true method that may be more effective than others (courtesy of our former editor, Ghaus Iftikhar), i.e., to reduce the maximum processor state from the laptop’s power settings. In this post, we will tell you how to prevent your system from heating up by adjusting the power options for your processor state.

This tip might come in handy not just for gamers and people who wish to run resource intensive application in the wake of overheating laptops, but also if, for some reason, you are unable to return a laptop with a heating issues (perhaps due to warranty constraints), or are dealing with an old laptop, which won’t take the brunt any more.

Before explaining the method of reducing the maximum processor state, let us take a look at the logic behind reducing the maximum processor state to prevent overheating of your laptop. Reducing the maximum processor state for your laptop (both when it is on battery or when the power cable is plugged in), reduces the processor’s performance a notch (depending on your settings) and prevents it from being used at optimum potential by an application or game, which will reduce thermal heating. For example, if you are playing a game that is consuming 100% of your processor’s capacity, then it may also result in heating up your system, whereas reducing the battery power state to, say 80%, can resolve this problem, and also result in battery power conservation.

To change these settings, go to Power Options from the Control Panel or the system tray menu.

Now go to Chnge Plan Settings –> Change Advanced Power Settings.

In the new window that pops-up, expand Processor Power management –> Maximum processor state, and reduce the on battery and plugged in power settings. The settings you keep will depend on your preferences and the capability of your system.

Based on our experience, we have noticed that that the laptop overheats when the processor is running at 100% processor state. Reducing the processor state by a few notches results in the reduction of temperate by 10-20 C, which results in a minor performance dip. We used Speccy to check for temperate during testing, based on which the processor running on 95% processor state gave the same performance (barely noticeable dip), with a drop of 10-20 C. You can keep an even lower processor state (such as 80-85%) to make sure that your laptop heats up even less.

The above mentioned tip should easily prevent your laptop from heating up; however, make sure that the processor state is not reduced very low in order to prevent reducing your processor’s performance to an undesirably low level.

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[Kojootti]

Cool, thanks for this one.

Let's see if it helps any on my laptop. :D

[niharjhatn]

If your laptop is overheating... I seriously suggest you don't throttle your performance and find the REAL CAUSE of the overheating... is it CPU or GPU (most importantly).

If its CPU - check the fan, get compressed air and give it a clean, and then REPLACE THERMAL PASTE - I did this for an i5 laptop I bought 1.5 years back, dropped standing temps like 30 degrees.

Also, get a stand (I just got one that props up the screen) - you can also get those fancy coolers if you want, they make a world of difference apparently.

[Tweety.Abd]

If your laptop is overheating... I seriously suggest you don't throttle your performance and find the REAL CAUSE of the overheating... is it CPU or GPU (most importantly).

If its CPU - check the fan, get compressed air and give it a clean, and then REPLACE THERMAL PASTE - I did this for an i5 laptop I bought 1.5 years back, dropped standing temps like 30 degrees.

Also, get a stand (I just got one that props up the screen) - you can also get those fancy coolers if you want, they make a world of difference apparently.

Throttling the CPU significantly lowers the temperature. I've set my maximum CPU usage to 5% and minimum to 0% and my temperature drops to 35*C or lower (with cooler). Normally, my CPU temperatures are above 50*C. I'd like to know, how do you apply thermal paste on a laptop. I'd be grateful if you could help me out on this :)

[Brrownie]

Thanks bud, I'll give it a shot! :)

[7even]

Nice info. :)

[majithia23]

good one , although knew this , but thanks for sharing . :)

i would also like to mention ,

that even the new AMD Control Center can help you keep your PC cool .

set the Processor power according to your requirements and see the difference .

for eg on my system i keep the Power at 50% when performing routine tasks , namely - surfing,Chatting,typing,texting,watching non HD videos,and the like . and the system works pretty fine and remains cool with temperatures at around 55 to 60 'C .

and increasing the power when some more intensive work is required .

and also, setting the power to the minimum when idle . (...... when the temps drastically drop to around 45'C ! )

i find this little tool in the AMD utility quite useful .! ;)

>> another little tool i would like to recommend is the Granola Power Manager .

it features a dynamically auto adjusting CPU power manager .

meaning , it auto configures the CPU power according to the number and type of Apps running at a time on a PC .

in other words the amount of stress a CPU is under at a given time will define the state of CPU power via Granola .

you can also over ride the Auto setting and set it to a predefined Manual setting of CPU Power .!

under Auto mode , you wont notice a drastic fall in temperatures but still it makes a difference of keeping the core cool ..! :)

>> under manual intervention ,

what works is --

-- keep the air vents free from any hindrance and let the lappy breathe easily .

-- regularly clean the air intake ports and exit ports from any dust or other particulate matter that build up and clog the air flow .

blow it with a power blower or a pressurized air can .

-- apply high efficiency thermal compounds . ( if you can yourself ..)

[mara-]

If your laptop is overheating... I seriously suggest you don't throttle your performance and find the REAL CAUSE of the overheating... is it CPU or GPU (most importantly).

If its CPU - check the fan, get compressed air and give it a clean, and then REPLACE THERMAL PASTE - I did this for an i5 laptop I bought 1.5 years back, dropped standing temps like 30 degrees.

Also, get a stand (I just got one that props up the screen) - you can also get those fancy coolers if you want, they make a world of difference apparently.

Throttling the CPU significantly lowers the temperature. I've set my maximum CPU usage to 5% and minimum to 0% and my temperature drops to 35*C or lower (with cooler). Normally, my CPU temperatures are above 50*C. I'd like to know, how do you apply thermal paste on a laptop. I'd be grateful if you could help me out on this :)

Max to 5%? Is your laptop usable at all? Applying thermal paste to laptop CPU's can be damn complicated, depending on model. My Acer Aspire should be taken apart completely to access the CPU. Try to find documentation for your laptop, it should explain how to take it apart.

Cheers ;)

[Tweety.Abd]

If your laptop is overheating... I seriously suggest you don't throttle your performance and find the REAL CAUSE of the overheating... is it CPU or GPU (most importantly).

If its CPU - check the fan, get compressed air and give it a clean, and then REPLACE THERMAL PASTE - I did this for an i5 laptop I bought 1.5 years back, dropped standing temps like 30 degrees.

Also, get a stand (I just got one that props up the screen) - you can also get those fancy coolers if you want, they make a world of difference apparently.

Throttling the CPU significantly lowers the temperature. I've set my maximum CPU usage to 5% and minimum to 0% and my temperature drops to 35*C or lower (with cooler). Normally, my CPU temperatures are above 50*C. I'd like to know, how do you apply thermal paste on a laptop. I'd be grateful if you could help me out on this :)

Max to 5%? Is your laptop usable at all? Applying thermal paste to laptop CPU's can be damn complicated, depending on model. My Acer Aspire should be taken apart completely to access the CPU. Try to find documentation for your laptop, it should explain how to take it apart.

Cheers ;)

Yes, max to 5%. It's usable, but very slow. But I don't use this plan while I'm actively using the laptop. I only use it when I leave my laptop running overnight for downloading so I don't know much but, but the temperatures do get very low with that. I'm not very experienced in taking a laptop apart and my parents wouldn't allow me even if I knew how to. Do computer service shop provide such facilities of pasting thermal gel on mobile CPUs? And how much would they lower my temperatures and for how long will it last and can the gel be applied to GPU? It'd mean a lot if you could help me out :)

[mara-]

Well, good thermal paste should lower your temps. As suggested by toyo, MX-4 is good choice, I have it, too. Computer service shop should provide this service, but it might not be cheap, if they need to take it apart completely as I said. Paste can be also applied to GPU, if it has cooler, but it should have it. Some people never change paste, but it's good practise to change it once a year.

Cheers ;)

[LonePirate]

Mine is on 5% by default (balanced plan) should I leave it or increase it? My laptop overheats bigtime