[Saka]

@Liue It doesn't sound right if the laptop is getting hot enough to throttle when doing low demand tasks. If the behaviour is only recent, could it be caused by dust buildup? Spring and early summer were dusty as hell this year due to long drought, my laptop was looking quite gnarly inside when I opened it a while ago for maintenance.

Even relatively small amount of dust inside can kill the heat dissipation in a laptop, so something that wouldn't affect a desktop system much can very well be covering up the air vents or slowing down the fan.

[Saka]

I was looking for some info on the net and stumbled upon this thread. The carpet in the laptop reminded me of this talk about overheating laptop.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Oh wow, that looks bad. @DracoTarot values cleanliness, I wonder what he thinks about that amount of dust. But 8 months is really not that long, it must have been a rather dusty environment. How often do you usually clean your dust vents?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch The OP mentioned cat hair, so that would accelerate the vents and fan fins getting clogged up.

OTOH I don't have any pets at the moment and my laptop still can be quite grey inside after a few months. Especially winter and spring time is really dusty in Finland, because the air gets horribly dry and the particles just float about. Very annoying, because I have a never-ending war with the dust in my flat. It's like being stuck in a lost battle.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka I remember you mentioning the dust, but I also recall that you have an air purifier (please correct me if I remembered it wrong). Does it help at all? And do you then have to clean the laptop every few months?

Have you tried getting more plants that help with dust? I remember we talked about those briefly in the past, but I think we were talking about plants that can help to cool the flat. The rubber plant is the one NASA concluded is best for reducing air particles, and allegedly ivy is good for that, too. Do you have any of those around?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch I have some green plants, but they don't really seem to do anything about the dust. If anything, the plants themselves get dusty. The air purifier helps some, but not that much. The particles are just omnipresent and no amount of valiant efforts will catch them all. 😶

I was quite shocked that the air is this dusty when it's supposed to be "rather good air quality", but it is what it is.

Rain helps, but this year has been really low on rain until the summer. The summer was quite humid, so that helped with things, but now that the autumn is here again, I have my dust and static back.

[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch I clean my PC every second week and blow out all the dust with compressed air.

We haven't had any rain, and the environment is still dry and dusty. I have to clean my desk and equipment often.

[DoctorEldritch]

@DracoTarot It is admirable. I can never bring myself to do that, I always fear that I will damage something if I open it up (but I do have a laptop, I did not have this problem with a tower before. So I usually give it to the service desk to get cleaned, so do not do that often.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka It may depend on the plants, not all of them have dust-cleansing properties. But you're right, this year has been harder than most in that regard.

[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch That's why compressed air is the most suitable for cleaning a desktop. It is not necessary to remove parts all the time from a desktop depending on how dirty the nooks and crannies are.

I keep mine assembled and give it a thorough blow.