Laptops naturally get warm due to their shape and size. However, if they stay warm for long periods of time, they can overheat, slow down, or become permanently damaged. Whether or not you experience the warning signs and dangers of an overheating laptop, you can follow these simple and inexpensive precautions below to keep your computer cool and in working order.

We found that the following steps can reduce the internal temperature of an old, dangerously hot laptop from 181° Fahrenheit (83° Celsius) to 106° F (41° C). This is a 41 percent difference after using the active laptop cooling pad for one hour and reducing the room temperature to 68 degrees.

In addition to these approaches, be aware of problems that occur at this time that do not indicate an environmental problem, but which can still have a negative effect on your laptop. Perhaps the most common cause of temporary overheating is placing the computer on your lap, protected by insulators such as blankets that both trap heat and block fans.

Change your laptop’s power settings from High Performance to a Balanced or Power Saver plan. This tweak tells the system to only use the power it needs to run your applications instead of always using the maximum processor speed. If you need to play games or do other intensive work, you can switch back to the High Performance plan as needed.