Vista - Laptop overheating

My asus F3T laptop seems to be overheating alot lately. Anytime I play medieval total war 2 it will overheat and switch itself off around 20 minutes in.

I downloaded speedfan and saw that all the temperatures were pretty high even on idle. When playing a memory intensive game the temperature would shoot through the roof. Especially the core temp which went above 100c.

Had this laptop for about a year now and not had anything like this happen before.

I think it might be because of dust accumalating in the fan but im not too sure.

Ive stuck a fan to blow directly on my laptop to cool it down a bit and it seems to have worked a little, the core temp has gone down a fair bit. But I dont know if I want to be constantly blowing a fan against it.

Do you think I should open it up and give it a good dust out?

I'm guessing the warranty would be voided if it were to be opened, right?

Yeah i think so, Ive looked around on google and it says I can just use a can of compressed air to blow into the side vents without having to open it up. Dont know if it will work though

Blowing into the side vents may be helpful - but *probably* not as helpful as blowing into the rear exhaust, reversing the normal airflow direction - if you think about it, dust and whatnot is being trapped on the intake side of the radiator fins, and reversing the airflow should dislodge whatever is trapped and blow it back to the vents. The unfortunate thing is that it is very hard to get that stuff out of the laptops, because most laptops use some sort of grill to help prevent larger things from coming in in the first place, but that also makes is doubly hard to clean them out when they come in and combine to make larger items (like dust bunnies).

However, there is also a caveat. Some laptops also include an intake (usually with a fan) on the bottom, and that usually has a grille over it as well, and it can get clogged up right there.

Really, it is best to blow out all the intake areas first to clear them of dust then give a good long blow from the back to dislodge whatever might be hung up on the radiator fins, because even if the intake and exhaust ports are clear, if there is stuff hung up on the radiator fins impeding airflow, you'll get the same symptoms - a lot of heat.

Get a cooling pad for under it. They also make a rack to raise it off your desktop. Make sure its on a solid surface and not a desk pad or soft surface.

Cheers for the advice guys, looks like I'll be buying some compressed air then.

Also thought about buying the cooling pad but hopefully I wont need it if cleaning it out works

Good idea to clean the laptop. A cooling pad is worth it for gaming.

Things is though, Ive used this laptop for gaming for almost a year and its not given me any problems before but I'll probably get a cooling pad just to make it more effecient if its not too expensive

Anyway what do you make of these temperatures?

GPU- 71 'c
Local temp - 61 'c
remote temp - 68 'c
Temp1 - 60 'c
Core - 80 'c

This is when the laptop is being used normally (mozilla and itunes being the only substantial programs running)

When gaming the core temp goes over 100 c sometimes. then shuts itself down.

those are pretty hot temps - my desktop is air cooled only and overclocked by 25% and my CPU stays at around 40C in normal use and about 48C under full load....

The temps you've written are higher than they should be - think about it - it is a *LAP top* - do you *really* want something on your lap that is running at 140 degrees Fahrenheit??? That is about the same temp as the coffee that the lady in the Midwestern US sued McDonald's over....and about the same temp as the more energy efficient water heaters heat water to. 60C = 140F. SO, in reality, your laptop is actually hotter than that.

Now, I am not sure what "remote" temp refers to - but the rest of those temps seem odd. The GPU temp is the only one that seems somewhat normal, as my 8800 GTS 512MB KO edition runs about that with factory fan settings. However, I would think that laptop GPU temps would be lower, especially when not gaming....

And, even though you have been gaming with it for a year doesn't mean anything - if it has a fan and is not HEPA filtered, it will collect dust. You've just finally hit the threshold that not enough air is passing through so it is getting hot.