Laptop shutting off during games

[Flynn]

Hey fellow Supreme Commanders, my laptop (a Dell Studio 1555) seems to randomly switch itself off as if it were a power cut if the game goes on for more than 20 minutes. Anyone have any ideas?

[D4E_Omit]

Overheating.. It auto-shutsdown when it gets 98 degrees :/

[Flynn]

That's gotta be it then! Crappy design.

[Koecher]

I bet its rather some crappy dust inside it. Usually Laptops are able to keep GPU/CPU below critial temperatures, even with 100% load on both. And Dell isnt a cheap brand, so they know what they do...
Check the Temperatures (i.E. by Speedfan). How long you use it already? You put it on a hard surface?

[shifty]

I used to have problems with GPU throttling because of heat. Everyone told me to clean the dust out with canned air, and I was like "whatever, that couldn't possibly help that much".

I finally got around to cleaning the dust out, and boy was I wrong. My GPU max core temp dropped like 20 degrees C. Definitely do it if your computer is remotely old.

[Koecher]

From my experiences, the only way to get it really clean is to disassemble it and remove the dust directly from the heatsink. That actually is a good chance to get rid of the old (and most likely desiccated) thermal grease and replace it with new.

And actually, I'm not a friend of using compressed air or the vacuum cleaner to blow in / suck out air trough the ventilation openings. If you do this and have really (really really really much) bad luck, you'll harm your Computer by induced Voltage by the forced rotation of the fan.

[ColonelSheppard]

Well compressed air is a solution for most parts.. i you can hardly damage something with it at least from my experience. (i tryed to kill an old PC by rotating the fan with an little disel-engine and even that didnt kill it, was a long time ago though)

[Nombringer]

i tryed to kill an old PC by rotating the fan with an little disel-engine

Wait waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

[Flynn]

Haha, Shep you are a crazy genius, haha, lol Unfortunately for my Dell you literally have to strip it down into component bits to get to the CPU fan so I may as well get some thermal grease and do it properly. But it's just such an arse to do compared to my old Packard Bell where the fan was easily accessible. I guess that should be my solution then, thank you for your help guys!

[ToejamS]

be careful with compressed air tho, I have damaged a fain with it. It made it spin so fast that the fan blade caught the frame and flew apart. I would suggest using quick, short shots of compressed air. As Koecher says by removing the heatsink you can replace the thermal compound which does lose efficiency after a couple of years and you will be able to do a better job of cleaning rather than just sticking a nozzel up its jacksy.