Tips on keeping your laptop cool

Recently when I turned on my laptop in a quiet room, someone ‘hilariously’ quipped “Are you taking off?”.  Unappreciated as his comments were, it did really bring home the fact that I could no longer tell the difference in sound between my laptop and my girlfriends hairdryer.  And it isn’t just noisy – my laptop no longer has the blue rubber cover over the Track Point stick – not because it fell off, but because it actually melted.  Clearly, something needed to be done…
A few people I spoke to recommended getting one of those cans of compressed air and blasting it in to the air outtake vent, but I reasoned that if I was going to do this, I might as well do it properly and take the thing apart.  I’ve written this like a step-by-step guide, but I don’t want to call it one because it is kinda patchy and incomplete.  Instead, consider it just a set of tips which might save you from making the mistakes that I made.
Warning: Anything you do based on this guide is at your own risk. You could permanently damage your laptop and could also void your warranty!


Tip 1: Find a suitable technical manual before taking it apart. This is pretty important.  If you don’t, you could end up doing what I did and remove screws unnecessarily – and even more importantly make sure that you…
Tip 2: Check to see if you will need to remove any heat sinks or anything else tricky. It is really worth checking this beforehand so that you don’t do what I did and have to spend 2 hours going out and buying some thermal paste in a rush having yanked the heat sink from my video chip.  I won’t try and explain how to replace the thermal paste or pad because there are plenty of other guides out there for that, and frankly, I’m not very good at it.
Tip 3: Remove the relevant components until you get good access to the air outtake vent. Obviously try not to remove anything unnecessary, but if you’re going to all this trouble you might as well do that best job you can.  Put the screws somewhere safe and in a manner which ensures you put them back in the right places.
Tip 4:  Remove all dust. It was at this stage that it became clear to me exactly what the problem with my laptop was.  The pictures below are extremely poor quality from my mobile, but hopefully if I tell you that the circled gray block is where you should only see a copper vent, you will get the idea.  It was literally a dam of dust , which was thick enough to stick together in a single strip when I pulled it away.

The wall of dust which stopped my processor from breathing

There will be variable amounts of dust all over the place, so at this point you may want to use a can of compressed air (available from hardware stores) or a small vacuum cleaner to remove as much as possible, including from the fans.  One ‘tip’ that I read somewhere is that you can damage the small fans if you make them spin too fast by blowing air into them – this could be complete rubbish, but there’s no harm in holding it still with your finger while you blast it with air.
Tip 5: Put everything back carefully. I guess this goes without saying, really.
That solved it for me, anyway.  Feel free to share any better tips with me.