How to protect your battery from overheating

[James75]

I've heard all these horror stories about notebook/laptop batteries that overheat. Exactly what are the various ways for us to protect our batteries from overheating?

[TomJ]

Buy your laptop a usb-driven cool pad. This way, it keeps your laptop cooled off. Make sure that your vents are free from dust including the fan. With regards to your battery, avoid plugging your ac adapter for long periods of time. You can also try removing your battery and use your ac adapter or pc voltage regulator instead. This way, you are not charging your battery all the time while you’re using your laptop.

[Alchemist]

Great tip there TomJ! I just bought on of those usb cool pads and it definitely works on my laptop. Now, I don't have to worry about overheating and stuff like that even if I'm using my laptop for hours and hours on end.

[PamJazz]

Solution:

If the CPU heatsink is not clogged with dust and lint completely, you can use canned air and just blow it inside the laptop through the openings on the bottom and on the sides. It’s nice as a precaution measure, but it might not work if your laptop already has a problem and the heatsink is completely clogged.

1. Open the laptop case, so you can access the CPU fan and the heatsink. In some cases you can access the heatsink through the latch on the bottom of the laptop. Sometimes you have to open the laptop case all the way down.
2. Carefully disconnect the fan cables on the system board and remove the fan. If the fan makes unusual sound when it spins (grinding sound), I would recommend to replace the fan.
3. Clean the fan and the heatsink with compressed air.
4. I would also recommend removing old thermal grease from the CPU and applying new grease for better heat conductivity.