How to take good care of a gaming laptop

Taking good care of your gaming laptop is crucial to ensure its longevity and optimal performance. By following these tips, you can prolong the lifespan of your gaming laptop and ensure it continues to deliver optimal performance during your gaming sessions. Here is a guide to help you maintain and protect your gaming laptop to ensure its performance lasts long.

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Keep it clean

Regularly clean your gaming laptop every 3-6 months to prevent dust buildup. Dust and debris can negatively impact the lifespan of your laptop if left unaddressed. Dust can clog cooling vents and obstruct airflow, leading to overheating. You reduce the risk of damage caused by overheating or component failure by keeping your laptop clean.

Use compressed air to blow out dust from the vents and use a soft cloth to wipe the screen and keyboard. If your laptop gets clogged due to dust in its fans, this can result in decreased performance and slower operation. Keeping your laptop clean ensures that the components can operate at their intended efficiency, allowing for optimal performance.

Don’t forget to clean your storage drives too!

Over time, your laptop’s storage drive can become filled with unnecessary files, such as temporary files, duplicate files, old downloads, or unused applications. Clearing out these files can free up valuable storage space.

When your laptop’s storage drive is nearly full, it can slow down overall performance. This is because the operating system and applications need space to create temporary files and perform various tasks. By clearing unnecessary files, you provide more room for these operations, which can lead to improved performance and responsiveness.

So, take the time once in awhile to go through your hard drive and check the files there.

Keep the laptop cool

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The amount of electricity your laptop uses depends on the task being performed. Overclocking your CPU can generate excessive heat because you are operating the CPU at higher clock speeds than the manufacturers intended. Gameplay, streaming, and sharing can also put a strain on your laptop’s CPU. 

It’s important to keep the laptop properly ventilated and play games in air-conditioned spaces so the device doesn’t overheat. Avoid exposing your gaming laptop to direct sunlight or placing it in an excessively hot environment. It’s also advisable to avoid extremely cold temperatures, as sudden changes in temperature can cause condensation inside the laptop.

When using your gaming laptop, make sure not to obstruct the ventilation openings. Place the laptop on a flat, hard surface to allow for proper airflow so the fan intake grilles aren’t obstructed. Using it on soft surfaces like beds or couches can block the vents and lead to overheating.

Alternatively, invest in a laptop cooling pad to help improve airflow and keep your laptop’s temperature in check. This can prevent overheating and potential hardware damage.

Protect your gaming laptop from viruses and threats

Gaming laptops are susceptible to infections such as adware, malware, and other viruses that can take up some of your usable memory or even cripple your operating system. Antivirus programs are designed to detect, prevent, and remove various types of malware, such as viruses, worms, Trojans, ransomware, and spyware. These malicious programs can cause significant harm to your laptop, compromising your data, privacy, and system stability. Antivirus software helps defend against these threats by actively scanning and blocking malicious files and activities.

Microsoft Windows has its own free antivirus software known as Windows Defender. It protects your laptop against software threats such as spyware, malware, and suspicious apps. 

Keeping Windows Defender updated ensures you get new features and the latest security enhancements when they are released. This provides your gaming laptop with ongoing real-time protection against harmful software threats.

Update your software and drivers regularly

Keep your operating system, drivers, and antivirus software up to date. Regularly installing updates and patches can improve system stability, security, and overall performance. The software and driver updates are needed to fix bugs and glitches. Sometimes, new helpful features are also installed during software updates.

To stay up to date, regularly check for updates for your operating system, applications, and drivers. Most operating systems have built-in update mechanisms that can automatically check for and install updates. To manage system software and driver updates on Windows 10, go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update.

Additionally, you can visit the official websites or use update management software provided by the software and hardware manufacturers to ensure you have the latest versions installed.

For example, to update your NVIDIA GeForce drivers, you need to download the NVIDIA GeForce Experience application.

Third-party software and drivers can be updated automatically or manually depending on the software. For manual updates, you’ll usually get a pop-up message when you are online informing you that a new update is available. 

Give your laptop a break

Shutting down your laptop allows it to cool down and parts such as the cooling fans don’t have to continue spinning unnecessarily. After an intense day or night of gaming, power down the laptop to save on power. You can also adjust the power settings to set sleep times and better maintain the battery.

In terms of battery health, most people forget or wait until their laptops are out of battery before plugging them in. This is bad for the battery. If possible, you should never drain the battery below 20%. This can help extend the life of your battery since using your laptop with a low charge can put a strain on the battery and significantly reduce its charging capacity.

When your battery charge reaches 100%, users are advised to unplug laptops. Lithium-ion batteries, which are commonly used in laptops, have a limited number of charge cycles before their capacity starts to degrade. Keeping the battery constantly charged at 100% can contribute to faster degradation over time. By unplugging the laptop once the battery is fully charged, you avoid keeping it at maximum capacity for extended periods, which can help prolong the overall lifespan of the battery.

Use a surge protector

Power surges and electrical fluctuations can damage your gaming laptop. They last less than a second but within that time they can damage electric appliances connected to your power outlets. While a gaming laptop’s PSU offers some protection against low voltage power surges, it is possible for high voltage surges to damage your gaming laptop.

It is always a good idea to have a surge protector installed since it’s not only your gaming laptop that is at risk but other electronic devices as well. Connect your laptop to a surge protector to safeguard it from voltage spikes and power surges. This will help prevent potential damage to the internal components.

By following these tips, you can prolong the lifespan of your gaming laptop and ensure it continues to deliver optimal performance during your gaming sessions.

Our pick of gaming laptops

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