I’m frustrated. My laptop is probably 3.5 years old or so, an Asus model, alleged to be a gaming model. Any time I try to play almost any game…Skyrim, Europa Universallis IV, even some Facebook games like Marvel Avengers, the fan runs loudly, the computer heats up, and will eventually shut down. I have a little cooling pad the computer sits on–plugs into a usb slot, runs an extra little fan, but it doesn’t seem to help.
Any ideas?
The first thing to check is whether it’s clogged with dust. You can usually find instructions online for how to take the back off to get to the fan and filter. Check if that’s full of dust or whatever.
Also, you say the fan runs loudly. Was it always that loud? Or could it be hitting something, making more noise, but not spinning very fast?
I don’t think it was always this loud…it gets louder as the machine heats up, sounds like the fan is turning faster…or trying to turn faster. The fan doesn;t run at all when I’m just reading this board or otherwise doing routine surfing. Gonna look into removing the back, blowing out dust. Thanks for the idea.
sometimes just hitting the vents with canned air will do the trick.
Is the game racquetball?
Try insisting that your laptop stretch before you start.
If getting rid of dust doesn’t do the trick, try tweaking some of the graphics settings. Laptops naturally run very hot, and even low-overhead games like Minecraft can overheat the system if the FPS is set too high.
then a slow warm up like a game of Klondike.
If your PC’s vendor has given you no way of reading temperatures, install GPU-Zand CPU-Z, or SPEEDFAN.
My 5-year-old Dell laptop does the exact same thing – I’ve figured out that it happens pretty much anytime I use a Flash-based app (like the Facebook games, or a lot of embedded videos) for more than 5 minutes or so.
My guess had been that Flash was more processor-intensive than the other things I do on this laptop (read e-mail, cruise the SDMB, etc.). I may have to look into cleaning the fan vents.
Here’s a ghetto solution I used to use with my old laptop: Set it on top of a ziploc bag full of ice cubes. When the ice started to melt, pause the game and refill the bag.
I think you might have the exact same ASUS model as me (“Republic of Gamers”, as it says on top of it) and I have had the exact same problem. I started using one of those cooling devices with a fan placed underneath the computer on someone’s recommendation, and it actually did work. Another thing I noticed–you have to make sure that there’s a lot of space between the back of your laptop where the vents come out and anything solid. The vents run hot and you definitely need a lot of ventilation.
This bears repeating, also always use them on a hard surface, laying them on a bed or couch cushion the feet sink in and the surface will be right up against the vents partially obstructing them as well as tending to suck up bits of lint that will amplify the problem.
Gaming laptops are typically under-spec compared to gaming PCs. And even a gaming PC would be in need of some replacement components after 3 years. Laptops don’t really let you replace anything but RAM, so my guess is your CPU is simply not up to the task of running those games. It could even be as simple as your thermal paste wearing out. I had that issue earlier this year, and my CPU almost melted.
Does your laptop meet the system requirements for any of those games?