TravelMate 8100 overheat

[bunj]

I have an acer travelmate 8100 that is a little over a year old, and in the past two months has started shutting down if I run any graphics demanding games( Unreal Tournament 2004, Hero's of Might & Magic 5, Dungeon Siege II). About 4-5 months ago I had no problem running DS II so this is a new problem. I found a copy of Duke Nukem and didn't have any problems. I've updated my video driver, and reinstalled windows. I have speedfan installed and when I reboot after a hard shutdown, the CPU temp is very high. Now the CPU is always overheating( currently at 58C) and I think the problem is only going to get worse. My 1yr warrenty is up so I don't want to have to send it off to get fixed but I'm not sure what my options are. Does anyone know how to get instructions on taking the laptop apart so I can try cleaning it or perhaps reapplying thermal paste? Or any other idea's about why it is now overheating.

Acer TravelMate 8100
PII M Centrino 2.0GHz
1GB RAM
ATI Radeon Mobility x700 128MB
100GB HDD

I've loved this computer until now, and have been bashing my old dell since I got an acer. Now I'm finding out that even though my old dell had lots of problems, their website was really helpful. The acer support site gives me the drivers that came with the computer and thats all the help I can find. The online help correspondend told me that he couldn't help me!!

 

[speckfire]

I have the same problem

TravelMate 8100
Intel Pentium M 760 processor
ATI mobility radeon x700 128mb graphics

I have the exact same problem. In fact, I did send my laptop in to get fixed (it was still under warranty), and they replaced nearly everything. It ran fine for a while after I got it back, but now the same crap is happening with it overheating and losing power when I try to play games. But now it's no longer under warranty.

It's really ****ing me off, as the problem returned worse than before to the point that I cannot game at all. I can't find any helpful information, even though I suspect this is a common problem with this laptop.

 

[bunj]

I solved the problem by blowing compressed air into the heatsync fan exit on the left rear of the laptop. All it took was one burst and I haven't had any overheating problems since! Hope this helps