“It’s as hot as a stove, the fan is screaming, it shuts itself down.” Mostly from June to September. Three causes — and it matters that you work out which one is yours before you spend money on something that won’t help.
Cause 1: Dust (70% of cases)
A laptop pulls air in through the slots underneath and blows it back out across the heatsink. Over the years that airflow collects dust, hair and pet fur — and the heatsink ends up clogged like a filter.
How to tell if it’s dust:
- Yours is 2+ years old (under a year it’s usually not dust)
- Run a finger over the vents and you feel warm air — but no STRONG stream (it barely blows out)
- The fan sounds uneven, as if it’s choking
- HWMonitor shows the CPU at 90°C+ even when you’re not doing anything demanding
On your own: You can use a compressor (NOT a vacuum cleaner — too little pressure), from the side, in short bursts. But careful — if you’ve never done it, don’t open the laptop yourself, the plastic clips snap easily.
With us: we strip it down completely, take the heatsink out, clean it with brushes and with the compressor, and replace the thermal paste. Price: 3,500 RSD. Takes 2-4 hours.
Cause 2: Dried-out thermal paste (20%)
Between the processor and the heatsink there’s a layer of thermal paste — basically a putty that carries the heat across. After 2–3 years that putty dries out and the heat stops moving.
Signs:
- The laptop is 3+ years old
- The heatsink looks clean (so it isn’t dust)
- The CPU overheats the moment you put a load on it
- A year or two ago it was fine under the same conditions
Replacing the thermal paste = the same job as above, 3,500 RSD. It’s usually done together with the cleaning.
Cause 3: Software — a process eating the CPU (10%)
Before you buy a cooler or bring it in, open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) → Processes → the CPU column. If you see something sitting at 60%+ while you’re doing nothing — that’s what’s overheating it, not the heatsink.
The usual culprits:
- Antivirus running a scan — let it finish (1-2h)
- Windows Update — same thing, wait it out
- A browser with 50 tabs + YouTube in the background
- Cryptominer malware — see the virus removal guide
- OneDrive/Dropbox syncing a big file — wait it out
Hardware that actually helps
There’s a cheap fix and a pricier one:
- Cooling pad (a base with a fan in it) — 2,500-5,000 RSD in a shop. Buys you about 5-10°C. Worth it if you game on the laptop a lot.
- A stand that keeps air under the machine (like a trivet) — free to improvise, literally anything that lifts the laptop 2-3 cm.
- A separate cooler for the graphics — for laptops this mostly doesn’t exist, because the CPU and GPU usually share one heatsink.
When it’s not something you can sort out yourself
- MacBook — don’t open it yourself, take it to an Apple service centre (or an authorised repairer)
- Gaming laptop with two fans (Asus ROG, Lenovo Legion) — more involved
- The laptop won’t start at all because of the overheating — it’s on the edge of failing, bring it in straight away
Bring it in or send it by courier, and the diagnosis is free. Most of the time we have it back to you the same day.