Need help preventing laptop from overheating

Hello,

I usually hook up my laptop to a monitor so I can use it just like a desktop PC. The thing is that while gaming, it randomly decides to overheat, causing it to shut down. It seems to be completely random. Some days it's fine, other days it overheats every 15 minutes. This is weird since I put it under the exact same stress every time.
I also have nothing running in the background, and the internal fan is completely exposed. Should I consider using an external fan?

Side question: I have the laptop laying upside down against a wall, does this cause any issues I'm unaware of? The fan does sound a little different when I put it in this position.

Thanks in advance!

 

Well, you definitely should take your laptop to a technician in order to have it looked at, that's a pretty common problem on laptops and you may be able to fix it with some cooling system, there are many cheap cooling systems, especially for laptops, those are flat pieces which most of them have several fans you can connect to your laptop via USB, it really helps a lot to enlighten the heating and whatnot, you should try it.

 

I agree to this checkup of a technician. However, you can first evaluate the situation by using your laptop in a different position. There are times that overheating is caused by the environment like the room is hot with no ventilation or simply the weather is so hot. I am not comfortable with the way you prop up the laptop against the wall. Yeah, it may have a bad effect.

So before bringing your laptop to the tech, I suggest that you shift to another position in using your laptop.

 

• Make sure there is enough clearance around the laptop, is your desktop too cluttered with stuff?
• Invest on a cooling pad
• Raise the laptop so it gets air circulation from bellow
  
  When you say upside down you mean that the fan exhaust is blocked by the desktop?, are you putting the laptop behind your monitor? This sounds bad.

 

Overheating problem is something I am familiar with, and I use the cooling fan with my laptop. It helps to a certain point but it won't fix the problem. Before it gets too bad like mine, I agree you should take it to a technician for it to be checked out. I let mine went on for too long.