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Easy, Cheap, Effective Laptop Cooling?
cloudofstrife asks: "I happen to own a laptop that happens to have overheating problems. Frequently during games, the processor will overheat, and the frame rate will drop from over 30 frames per second to under 2 frames per second. Is there a cheap and easy way to prevent my CPU from overheating?"
Friend of mine ordered a Dell with a comprehensive on site service warranty. The laptop arrived, he installed a game, started playing, frame rate dropped, machine shutdown. He did this about 3 times then said screw it and called Dell. They sent out a technician the same day, the guy replaced the video card, it never happened again.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Along the same lines, if you think cooling is the problem, and you are using your laptop in situations that would permit it's use, I would suggest something that gives a little more of a raise than extra large feet (although they certainly couldn't hurt). I use a griffin icurve, but there are plenty such products out there that will give your laptop a good boost allowing quite a bit of air to circulate around it. An added benefit is that with my particular desk and chair it raises my laptop to eye-level which has helped reduce neck strain after long hours of using it. I think that I got mine off ebay for like 30 bucks (I don't know what you would consider cheap, but for a lot of people that isn't exactly a bank breaker).
SpeedStep IS built into Windows XP. However, the Windows algorithm blows chunks.
http://pbus-167.com/ has Notebook Hardware Control, which can control SpeedStep, undervolt the processor (be careful with that one - it can kill stability), allow you to change the multiplier to any multiplier in a 1x increment from 6 to the max stock multiplier for your CPU (in your case, 16).
All SpeedStep does is lower and raise the multiplier as needed...