The issue of laptop overheating when playing games is quite common. It can be very frustrating to have issues when you’re trying to play games on your laptop. Sometimes your laptop might have to work very hard when it is playing a graphically intense video game.
This could cause your laptop to overheat and it might even shut your laptop down. If this has been preventing you from enjoying games fully, then you need to learn how to fix things.
The information below should help you to troubleshoot your problems so you can play video games without experiencing overheating issues. There are steps that you can take to prevent overheating and this can make playing games a lot more practical for you. You don’t have to feel intimidated when you’re trying to fix an overheating problem. Just follow the information below and you’ll be able to feel confident that things will be fine.
Laptop Overheating When Playing Games? How To Fix
Fixing PC Problems
The first thing to check is whether certain PC problems could be causing your laptop to overheat. Your laptop could have broken files, malware issues, or virus issues. You can download antivirus software to check to see if there are any issues with that. Run a powerful antivirus tool and then clean up your registry using a program such as Ccleaner.
Doing so can actually solve several problems, and you might notice that your laptop overheats less when you play games. Sometimes registry issues and viruses can slow a computer down or cause it to work harder than it needs to due to running background processes brought on by the virus or malware. This shouldn’t take long to handle and you can get things working fine again.
Of course, there are other problems to consider when your laptop is overheating while playing games as well. There will be more options to look into if this doesn’t solve your problems. It’s just good to get this step out of the way first so that you can rule these issues out. Either way, it’s positive for your laptop, and this is something you should be doing often anyway.
Connect Your Laptop to the Charger
You might not know this, but connecting your laptop to the charger could help to solve some of your overheating issues. A laptop might exert itself more than usual when it’s using a lot of power. Connecting your laptop to the charger while gaming can ensure that the laptop has sufficient power to do what you’re trying to do. This isn’t going to solve the issues for everybody, but it’s a step that you should remember to make your gaming sessions go smoother.
Consider Using Integrated Graphics Instead of Dedicated
All of the gaming laptops on the market use both integrated graphics and dedicated graphics. When your laptop is overheating, there is a good chance that the dedicated graphics are causing the problem. Dedicated graphics simply use more power than integrated graphics, and this can cause your laptop to overheat. Using integrated graphics instead could be a very solid workaround for you.
The only problem with this idea is that you won’t get the same performance out of the integrated graphics. In many games, this will make your experience less than it would be if you used the dedicated graphics. You’ll be sacrificing some graphical fidelity in order to alleviate your overheating issue. For some gaming laptops, however, this might be the most practical solution.
Buy a Cooling Pad
Providing your laptop with superior cooling can also help to mitigate your overheating issues. It might be a good idea to go out and buy a cooling pad for your laptop. Cooling pads give extra cooling to your laptop when it needs it the most. The pad should be capable of reducing the temperature of the laptop and you might not have to deal with overheating problems nearly as often when you have this solution in place.
Get a New Charger
There have also been instances where a faulty charger has been partially to blame for overheating issues. If you suspect that this might be the case, you should consider purchasing a new charger. Try this solution to see if a new charger solves your overheating issues. If things start to go better for you, then it’s likely that the charger was playing a role in your overheating problems.
Limit the FPS of Your Game
Frame rate is something that matters to gamers and you want to play games at the highest frame rate possible. However, sometimes letting the frame rate go too high will cause your gaming laptop to overwork itself. This can lead to overheating, and you might be better off limiting the FPS because of this. You can clock things down to 60 FPS instead of using an unrestricted frame rate and some games might even be able to run at 30 FPS without it being a detriment to your experience.
Try Underclocking Your Graphics Card
It might be smart to consider underclocking your graphics card as well to get a smoother performance. Your graphics card might be causing some of the overheating issues, and using less of its potential might make things run without overheating. This might not be ideal if you want to run games in high settings, but it could be a sacrifice worth making if the alternative is constant overheating. Consider doing this if you think that it will be necessary.
Use Different Power Settings
Your power settings might not be ideal right now and you can change them to get better results. You should try setting your maximum processor state to something with a lower value. This should make your laptop stop overworking itself, and you might be able to solve your overheating issues. Try playing around with the power settings to see what works for you.
Elevate Your Laptop
If your laptop doesn’t have good airflow, this could be contributing to the overheating problems. Elevating the laptop should allow it to cool more effectively, and this might keep it from overheating. Of course, this might not make playing a game on the laptop the most convenient thing in the world, depending on what position you have to put it in to elevate it. Just try to elevate the laptop by a few inches and see if that gives you better results.
Take the Time to Clean Your Laptop
Your laptop could simply need a good cleaning as well. Sometimes a laptop will get dusty on the inside and will need to be cleaned to avoid further problems. You can take things apart and use some compressed air to get it nice and clean again. Open up your laptop and make sure to clean the fans specifically so that you can alleviate overheating issues.
Once you have cleaned things properly, put the laptop back together and try playing a game. Boot up the game that has been giving you problems and see if the issues are still occurring. If they are less frequent, then your cleaning at least had some positive impact. Try to clean your laptop every so often to get the most out of your gaming laptop.
Get Back to Playing Games
One of the above solutions should surely help you out when trying to fix the issue of laptop overheating when playing games. You might even want to use many of these solutions in conjunction to get the best results. Just know that some gaming laptops won’t be able to handle graphically intensive games if they’re a little out of date. Regardless, you can often solve overheating problems with a little bit of patience and a willingness to troubleshoot.
