UPDATE 5 Aug
Someone has lent me an old laptop that was doing nothing but imitating a paperweight. It is doing what I need. I’ll take it with me on the trip to the Shrine in La Crosse. Meanwhile, the repair shop guy back home has completed work on the desktop (cloned my C drive to a big SSD). It’s working well and I can remote to it. It is less urgent to have that now, but it is an option. Also, one of you kind readers sent a donation for future repair of my Lenovo – I’ve concluded that having the power button on the side is a design flaw no matter how good the box is otherwise. Another kind reader offered to get me into a Mac…. I had a Mac some years ago and… I went back to PC because of… reasons. Still, it is a tempting offer!
Originally published: Aug 3, 2026
I’m sort of panicking. I’m on the road for another 9 days and my laptop is overheating and shutting down if I open more than a single browser page, and it can’t be resource heavy. I had a core “TJMax” of over 100C. Not good.
I may need to get something along the way to carry me through to the other side. I can’t work solely off my phone. That was my main approach today and it just didn’t work.
Also, because my desktop is in the “spa” getting a large new c: drive, I can’t “remote in” and use it’s power to do things I need to do. The guys in the shop said that when the cloning is done, they will get it on their internet for me, but that has not yet happened.
This on top of the way the trip began? Really? Moreover, the pain in my right foot flared up again. It may be that someone is unhappy that I am going to Our Lady’s Shrine and the annual conference.
FWIW, years ago I had a laptop that was overheating, and gave the blue screen of death. I had to get the data off of the disk drive, so in order to get that backup to run for a while, I put the running and open laptop into the refrigerator and closed the door, with the cord still into the laptop and running out the closed door. It worked because the processor was cool enough to run to finish the backup job. I don’t know but you may be able to try some version of this to cool down the laptop periodically to work, and then put the laptop back into a refrigerator for a while.
Overheating CPU is usually a fan or heating failure.
Could be heat plus humidity — but you might do well to check if you don’t have too much crapware installed.
UncleBlobb’s suggestion could work too, but make absolutely certain to put it in a completely watertight bag first.
But if it’s behaving like that in cool air-conditioned environments too, then something’s definitely on the blink — though each new release of each new moden “AI-powered” browser is more and more resource-heavy.
Actually, that’s a notion ; have you disabled the AI trash bundled with this stuff ?
Might the cooling airflow be inhibited? Can you open the case and blow out any dust, hair, whatever? Is the cooling fan running hard when it overheats? In some brands, the fan is straightforward to replace once you have a replacement.
I suggest running Task Manager and see if anything is running on your machine chewing up CPU.
It might be the main cooling fan is completely clogged and not getting the airflow needed to move heat out from the laptop, or (in the case of liquid cooling) the pump failed.
CPUs heat up very quickly, so if it’s overheating and shutting down within minutes of turning it on, that’s a good sign it’s some sort of complete failure of the cooling system. If it takes longer than that, like 10-30min, the fan and/or radiator might just need a thorough cleaning. From what it sounds like, you can avoid overheating if not using too many resources. This to me sounds more like the latter. Check the radiator and fan/s underneath and behind the laptop and perhaps give them a good blast from an air duster.
My laptop started overheating a few years ago. I got one of those dust sprayers and sprayed in every opening I could find. A bunch of dust blew out. I also got one of those laptop cooling fan trays that it sits on. I think that helped too.
Father, I sympathize with your situation. I am glad that your situation is improving.
For myself, I am on Apple devices now. The reason was simple: too many “blue screens of death”. Admittedly, that was about 20 years ago, but “once burned, twice shy” has kept me from using Windows again for personal use.
If you can, I’d suggest an ARM laptop — though beware that some older software won’t work on it.
Went to the Shrine this past April for my birthday weekend. Missed Cardinal Burke’s Pontifical Mass by one week?. It is a very lovely shrine!