Can I do something about a hot laptop without breaking the warranty?

[KethusNadroev]

I noticed that my laptop starts heating up immediately after I turn it on, it used to be so quiet you couldn't tell if it's working if the screen was black, now it's vrooming all the time, like, as long as it is switched on, it's hot 16 hours per day, that can't be good. It's only 1 year old and still in warranty, but I also work from it and the service isn't in my town and if I send it I usually get it back after one or two weeks because once the service guys get it they just send it to another country for repairs. I'd like to keep the warranty in case something more serious pops up.

 

I have Power4Gear Battery saving mode, which used to help, but now does nothing. Also the laptop is always on my wooden desk.

 

Edit: it was avast. I uninstalled it and the fans are quiet once more. And the laptop isn't hot. And the CPU is working at 2% while idle. So it was forcing my CPU to run at full capacity (3.5GHz while the official specs are 2.5) while constantly nagging me to pay for the premium version or whatever so it can optimize my computer because it's slow. Yeah, screw them.

Edited June 1, 2016 by KethusNadroev

[obobski]

Glad to hear you solved that! Some generic advice that won't void the warranty, and is probably still a good idea to investigate/do:

 

- Clean out the fans of dust/junk - you can use a gas duster to do this, and it can help with the system's existing cooling performance by bringing it closer to factory original.

 

- Get a "cooling pad" (its a plastic thing with fans in it) - this will help cool the underside of the laptop, and usually also lift it up to a nicer angle for typing, and doesn't modify the system itself so no warranty issues there. These usually only cost a few bucks too.

 

For anti-virus, Microsoft provides a completely free utility called "Security Essentials" (I think its been re-named for Windows 10 but the concept remains the same) which is sufficient for general use (as in, better than nothing, its free, its fairly lightweight, it integrates with Windows Update to keep itself up-to-date, etc). There are more esoteric, feature-laden options from third parties, but they will inevitably require/request you to insert money at some point (such as Avast did) - whether or not you're up to that is ofc your choice. Comodo, Avast, Kapersky, etc are all examples there.