Hello All,

I've been having some issues lately with my computer having mini-freezes or significant frame rate drops while in games (it is perfectfly fine for normal browsing use). 

The mini freezes occur in the Sims 3.  Basically, what happens is after playing for a while (over 30 minutes), the game will occasionally have about 1/4 to 1/2 second freezes.  Sometimes they will occur 3 or 4 right after another, sometimes there will be a several minute break between them.

The frame rate drops are occurring in League of Legends.  I've never had any issue running 60 fps when a majority of the settings are on high.  Recently, in certain games, my frames will drop to 20-25 partially into a game.  At times, it will drop even lower (sometimes all the way down to 5-10 for very short intervals).  Once it drops to 20-25, it will not return back up to 60 until the next game.

These are the only two games I have played recently on my coputer, so I'm not certain if similar things would occur in other games such as Starcraft 2.

I know for certain that it is not a virus, and there is very little extra stuff installed on my laptop (I frequently go into add/remove programs and get rid of everything non-essential that gets installed over time).  My hard drive gets defragged every single day.  The processor will be at approximately 20-30% used when I am in League of Legends or Sims 3, as well as having several other applications running (Zune, Firefox, Skype, etc.).  The memory will be at about 70% used (I want to upgrade my memory in the near future )

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My laptop specs are the following:

Intel Core i7 Q 720 @ 1.6Ghz

4 gb memory (I think 1333 Mhz but don't know that this is relevant)

Nvidia Geforce GT 330M with 1 gb discrete memory

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Last night, when it started happening again, I decided to download Core Temp, to measure the temperature of my processors.  When just in Firefox (prior to running any games), they will all be at ~50° Celsius (this is after I have since lifted the back end up with a book, I don't know what it ran at before).  I went to my main screen when I was having my issue in the middle of a game of League of Legends, and they were all running at 92-93° C.

The tj max is 100°.  One time a couple weeks ago, my computer randomly turned off on me in the middle of a game.  I'm beginning to wonder if the computer shut off for safety purposes due to being too hot.

What I'm wondering, I guess, is if that temp is out of the ordinary.  I'm of the mindset that it is, but I figured some computer gurus would be more familiar with it.  If it is too high, what would you all suggest?  This weekend, I will be taking my laptop apart to clean all the dust off of the inside, but I'm not certain that this is all it will need.

The air exhaust is on the left side of this laptop, but I noticed last night that the air intake is on the bottom.  This means when I had it simply against a table, it wasn't doing everything it should have been.  I have since set a book on the back side of my laptop to lift up the back end and allow more air to get underneath.

So is simply lifting up the back and cleaning out the laptop going to be sufficient to cool it down some while playing games? 

The other option I have seen is a laptop cooling pad.  I'm not too familiar with these, but know that some pull air away from the bottom, while some blow air towards the bottom.  Due to the air intake being on the bottom of my laptop, I'm assuming I need one that blows air towards it?  If you think I need one of these, are there any in particular you would suggest (I have a 15.6" laptop).

I have also seen a suggestion that if all else fails, to reapply thermal paste to the processor/heat sink?  I'm not too familiar with this, so is this a last resort type thing, or would anybody here suggest I do something with that as well?

Feedback would be greatly appreciated, the last thing I want is my laptop to die out early because it overheats :).

Despite receiving no replies (I'm actually quite surprised), it has been fixed.

I just used compressed air to blow out the insides of my laptop (quite a bit of dust came out). When combined with lifting the back end of my laptop up, my idle and active temps are 10-15° Celsius cooler now.

Within about 2 minutes of quitting a game, my temp will go right back down to 50° and hover there if just on firefox and doing other little things.

When in a game, the highest I have gotten it so far is 76° (I'm sure with a much longer time playing, I could get it into the lower 80's, but it was getting into the lower 90's when I played longer before, so it should still be a good 10° cooler during longer gaming sessions, which I am happy with.