Cool Down Your Windows Laptop

By default all Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 laptop computers are configured to use the processor at full usage, i.e. up to 100%. If you play graphic intensive games or run resource intensive applications on your laptop, the CPU usage generally goes up to 100% and so does the temperature of the processor.

If the temperature of your processor rises up to 100°C / 212°F, after some time you may start experiencing lag while using your computer.

Even though the best way to cool your Windows laptop down is to buy a good quality cooling fan, if you do not want to invest funds to purchase any external hardware device, there is still a workaround which you can configure in such a way that the CPU usage never goes beyond the specified limit.

For example, you can configure your Windows 7 laptop in a way that it uses only the 70% of the CPU. Since the 30% of the CPU remains unused in this case, the overall temperature of the processor remains consistent and the processor never overheats.

Here is how you can cool down your Windows laptop (Windows 8.1 is used for this demonstration.):

    ■Log on to your Windows 8 computer using administrator account.
    ■Click the Desktop tile from the Start screen.
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    ■Once you are on the desktop window, hover mouse to the bottom-right corner of the screen.
    ■From the displayed Charms bar, click Settings.
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    ■From the upper section of the Settings pane, click Control Panel.
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    ■Once the Control Panel window opens up, make sure that the Category option is selected from the View by list from the top-right corner.
    ■From the available categories, click System and Security.
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    ■From the System and Security window, click Power Options.
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    ■From the right pane of the Power Options window, click the Change plan settings link representing the currently selected power plan. (Balanced (recommended) in this demonstration.)
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    ■On the Edit Plan Settings window that comes up next, click the Change advanced power settings link from the bottom.
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    ■On the displayed Power Options box, click the Change settings that are currently unavailable link from the top.
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    ■From the enabled list, scroll down, locate, and expand the Processor power management tree.
    ■From the expanded list, further expand the Maximum processor rate tree.
    ■From the displayed options, i.e. On battery and Plugged in, click to select each option individually, and change its value from 100% to 70% (or any other value of your choice).
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    ■Click OK to save the changes and to close the Power Options box.
    ■Back on the Edit Plan Settings window, click the Close (X) button from the top-right corner, and close all the open windows and boxes to get back to the desktop screen.
    ■Once done, restart the computer to allow the changes to take effect.

Note: In order to restore the settings back to the default, follow the above steps while pressing the Restore plan defaults button from the bottom instead of clicking the Change settings that are currently unavailable link from the top on the Power Options box when on step 11.