Overheating, a cooling pad my best bet?

I've been having an issue with my Sager NP2090 overheating quite consistently whenever I run graphic intensive programs, mostly Counter-Strike: Source. After about 30 minutes of play time, my computer just shuts itself off.

I assumed this was an overheating issue, so I downloaded CoreTemp and, sure enough, my computer was reaching temperatures of 80 degrees C before shutting down. I did a little bit of research on my particular CPU, the C2D T7500 and the maximum temperature for it is 74.2 degrees C.

Is buying a cooling pad my best option to fix this problem, or is there a less expensive remedy for a cheap college student? I'm also concerned with the portability of a colling pad, after all the reason I bought a laptop was to use it outside of my home.

From searching it sounds like the Zalman NC-1000 is a great cooling pad, so if I do need to buy one is this the one to get? Thanks in advance for any input.

 

The first thing you should do is clean out your vents and fans. There's probably a good amount of dust built up. When I cleaned the dust out of my laptop, I saw a huge drop in temperature (10+) for some of the stats.

Temperatures are at idle using HWMonitor
Before: 53 - 58 - 58 - 49 - 28 - 60 -65 - 62 - 59 - 59 - 41 - 34
After: 44 - 46 - 46 - 36 - 25 - 47 - 50 - 49 - 47 - 47 - 30 - 34

 

Maybe try undervolting your processor?

 

I searched a little but I clearly should have searched more before posting, I just found this thread excellent thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=263039

I'm definitely going to try undervolting and cleaning my fans, thanks a lot for the quick replies.

 

Definitely try the air duster first, because it may be tricky to find the correct part for an exact replacement.

 

If the above recommendations dont work, for a cooler... I recommend the Enermax Aeolus CP001, there is a review of it i made in my signature.

 

Well, I undervolted my CPU and cleaned my fans and those two things alone made a huge difference, I'm down to about 65 degrees C gaming and I was able to play for about an hour with no shut downs.

ahl395: very nice review, I think after Christmas time I'll be buying one of those, sounds great.

 

If you plan on buying a cooler the Cooler buyers guide is the way to tell which will work best for your system (link in sig)