I moved to Spain recently and am really enjoying the hot weather. But I’ve noticed that my laptop keeps overheating and and shutting itself down. It starts up fine when it cools down, but I think it’s having a real problem with the weather. Anything I can do besides buying a new laptop?

Well, one thing you could do is give the laptop a good clean. The main cause of heat in a laptop (after a bust fan), is a build-up of dust and all the other grime that gets sucked up in the fan. But, if that fails, there are other solutions you can roll out.

Here’s an interesting one, a laptop cooler called the Antec Cooling System for Notebooks. It’s powered by your laptop’s USB port and provides cooling from beneath the laptop. It has two fans and promises to be “quieter than a whisper”. The great thing is that it provides a pass-through USB port, so you’re not missing any of the ports on your notebook.

It’s not going to break the bank either. It’s available for sale from Buy.com at around $25.00. If you think about the extra life this device can give your laptop, it does sound a bit like a bargain doesn’t it.

Anyway, go ahead and give your laptop a clean first, see if it solves the problem for you.