laptop overheating, should i buy cooling pad?

[Deimos]

i got an acer aspire thats about 6 months old now and working fine, except recently its been overheating alot and rebooting whenever i play Oblivion or Medieval II: total war.

i suppose i could fiddle with the games settings and see if running on lower lets me play longer... but i cant be bothered right now. im going to pick up an air duster tomorrow and see if cleaning out the fans help, but i was wondering if buying a cooling pad would help? ive seen some pretty cheap ones that i could easily afford but im not sure if it'll really help my overheating problem that much.... should i bother?

so yeah... theres a maplins right near to where i work, so ill probably end up going there. but is there really any difference between the different cooling pads (theres millions to choose from on the internet) or are they pretty much all the same bar the price?

dont really know where else to look for advice so anyone got any pointers?

[SnOwBunZz]

I would certainly clean it out. Lowering the settings and resolution would also help a bit to cool it down.

As for the cooling pad, I've noticed mine doesn't help alot, but I guess I can blame it on not really having alot of vent openings on the bottom of my laptop.

[zipykido]

It depends on where your intake and fans are. I wouldn't buy a pad if your computer puts the hot air under you. Generally what I do is put a fan behind my laptop and that works. You can also try elevating your laptop a few inches off of the table and that helps sometimes too. One thing to look out for is a pad with additional USB ports and plugs into the wall rather than your usb drive because it's a bit round-about if you're using energy like that.

[Halaster]

I have an Acer Aspire as well. Having proper ventilation helps, such as placing the laptop on a surface that has many holes or openings. As long as the surface you place the laptop on allows air to circulate you will get much better cooling. The other side of that surface should be unobstructed.

[Deimos]

well i already got the laptop raised slightly above my desk on a bunch of cd cases and stuff to improve ventilation. this helped for a while but now its back to its old overheating habits from about a month or so ago.

the thing is thought the air intake vent on this laptop is tiny, i dunno why anyone would design it like this but ill try cleaning it out first before i think about getting a cooling pad.

it still sorta runs at stupid temperatures even running games normally then takes forever to cool down again if i leave it idle... but like i said i never had this problem when it was new.

[Ronin]

Effectively, if the fan does not blow into a fan opening it doesn't cool anything at all.

2°C?

That's a fraction of summer/winter fluctuation.

However, @DIY:

The design isn't very effective. it's much better to make the fan blow into the fan inlet for several reasons:
A) The airflow is created where the air is needed, there is no loss through blowby or through the long tunnel towards the place where it should be.
Horizontal placement lets you use a much bigger fan, or a much slimmer pad.