What other steps can I take to cool off my Acer Aspire 5050?

[hanaleia]

IAs I write this I am topping 97C it will go down to 88C for a few seconds then right backup I know this is way too high but dont know what else to do about it. As long as the laptop is running it stays above 80C. I have taken the back off and blown out the dust from inside the laptop, and bought a nice aluminum laptop cooling pad with fans that has helped some, but when ever i play certain games or burn a dvd it shoots way up in the high 90s or even higher no matter what i do. It has even shut down a few times, The fan used to be very loud but suddenly I dont hear it at all so I downloaded Speedfan to keep an eye on my temp and rpms but SpeenFan will not tell me if my fan is even running,. I would replace the fan myself(unless it needs soldered to the mobo) if I knew that is was not functioning properly. Is there a reliable utility that wil tell me if it is actually working at all, and also is there anything else i can do to keep it cool. I saw a fan online that attaches to the outside of the laptop vents to help with cooling is this hype or could this really help? Any other ideas or thoughts that might help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[EXCellR8]

Unfortunately, some laptop computers just run hot. It could be faulty, or it could simply be inadequate cooling. It's obvious that a top temp of 97C is much too high, but there's only a limited number of things you can do with notebooks. One is to of course replace the fan, if possible, and use a cooling pad which you already have. If it were a more high-end laptop, I would recommend reapplying a thermal compound to the core of the CPU. It's hard to say whether you would be able to do that with your computer. I don't see an external fan helping too much with internal temps but it might be worth a shot depending on price.

Have you tried adjusting the fan speed using SpeedFan?

 

[Technochicken]

How old is your laptop? It is very possible that, over time, the heatsink or the fan in the laptop have become clogged with dust, causing the high temperatures. The best way to remove this would be to open your laptop and blow it out with compressed air.

 

[raybay]

Some laptops run hot, but not that hot... 97c is a ridiculously high temperature. I would pull bezel to see if the cpu fan is running properly... in fact, I would just replace it... about $10. Hot in that Acer model is 65c... In the meantime, clean out the air channels with Dust Off or other treated canned air... do NOT use compressed air that is not treated as that is a terrible generator of static electricity that can permanently damage or ruin you laptop.