Laptop overheating and the fan is very loud: causes and solutions

One of the most common laptop problems is overheating. The symptoms usually appear together: the fan spins loudly even during simple tasks, the keyboard and underside get too hot to touch, performance drops in games or heavy software, and sometimes the laptop shuts down without warning.

Overheating may not look like a fault in itself, but if it continues for a long time it wears out components on the motherboard and graphics card and can lead to much more serious faults later.

Try these first

1. Use it on a hard, flat surface: a bed, a pillow or your lap blocks the air intakes. Make sure the ventilation grilles are clear.
2. Check what is running in the background: open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and look for a program keeping the processor constantly busy. Sometimes what strains the fan is not the hardware but a stuck application.
3. Check your power settings: running permanently in “best performance” mode increases heat; choose the balanced mode for everyday use.
4. Cooling pad: especially on gaming laptops a pad helps airflow, but it is no substitute for cleaning out the dust inside.

Holding a vacuum cleaner to the fan vent from outside, or spinning a free fan quickly with compressed air, can damage the fan motor. Cleaning the inside requires opening the case.

The most common causes of overheating

• Dust build-up: a layer of dust between the fan and the heatsink fins blocks airflow. This is the most common cause of overheating.
• Dried-out thermal paste: the paste between the processor and graphics chip and the heatsink dries out over time and stops conducting heat.
• Worn thermal pads: the pads that cool components such as the power circuit and graphics memory also lose their effect over time.
• Fan failure: a fan with a worn bearing ticks, buzzes or scrapes; over time its speed drops or it stops completely.
• Heat from the motherboard: if one area gets abnormally hot even when the laptop is idle, a component may be shorting. Cleaning will not solve this; see how a motherboard short circuit is detected.

What happens at the service centre?

At Bilişim Laboratuvarı the laptop is disassembled, the fan and heatsink fins are cleaned, the thermal paste on the processor and graphics chip is renewed and, if needed, thermal pads are replaced with the correct thickness. If the fan bearing is worn, the fan is replaced. Where cleaning does not explain the heat, a thermal camera fault analysis is used to find the abnormally hot component on the motherboard.

For more information see our fan and cooling system maintenance page, or submit a fault report. If you are outside Istanbul you can send your device by cargo.