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General discussion

Computer overheating

Sep 1, 2016 11:16PM PDT

Hello everyone! I got this computer about 5 months ago and it's been working great. I recently been playing video games that I do know put a lot of heavy load on the computer but the past two day's it's been getting very warm and has actually shut down. I'm not sure why this is happening, because I do keep my laptop raised off of my desk with my broken laptop cooling pad(ironic right) and there's nothing in front or blocking the fans either. I clean my fans regularly so that dust build up doesn't occur either. I'm not sure if just the past two days have just been a lot for the computer but this just concerns me, and I'd like to try and fix this. My computer specs are:
Intel i7-6700HQ
Geforce GTX 960M
16GB DDR4 memory

Discussion is locked

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My son has a similar Asus.
Sep 2, 2016 8:56AM PDT
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Check Power Supply and Hard Drive
Sep 2, 2016 6:57PM PDT

First and foremost, i agree with R. Proffit's suggestion of regularly directing compressed air through the laptop's air vents. And, don't shake the can of compressed air before use.

A couple more things you can check. How hot does your power supply brick get during/after intense gaming? Is it plugged directly into a power outlet, or into a surge protector? Try it direct. The other item is the hard drive. If it becomes excessively hot it will gradually spread some of that heat to the rest of the chassis. You can use a well known free monitoring app called HW Monitor which will show temperatures of each of the cpu cores, the hard drive(s) and the graphics chip.

Your cpu is a true quad-core Intel Core i7. Most laptops equipped with a Core i7 have the scaled-down dual-core version (cpu model numbers ending in the letter "U"), but yours is a full quad-core which means it generates more heat than the dual-core version. The graphics chip also generates a fair bit of heat when working hard as does the hard drive. Replacing the hard drive with a single SSD would reduce the heat a little and make the system run faster while using less power. A 480GB - 500GB model is probably enough, but 980GB - 1TB is even nicer. Crucial MX 200 has clever built-in thermal protection. Samsung 850 EVO, Mushkin Enhanced Reactor and the new Sandisk X400 are also good choices.