I have many laptops come across my workbench for repairs. Generally it's a laptop that is infected with malware or has a failing hard disk drive. Usually a secondary complaint I'll hear is that the laptop gets really hot or loud, or even shuts off while using it. These are some pretty typical signs of a laptop that is overheating. You may be thinking this might be due to fan failure or maybe they're using the laptop directly on top of of their bed or lap and it's not getting proper ventilation. Sometimes that can be the case for these symptoms, however, more often than not it's because the heatsink is plugged with dust after several years (or sometimes only a few years) of normal use. It really depends on the environment that the laptop is exposed to, but generally after so many years of usage there will be dust build up trapped between the heatsink and fan. The only real way to remove the dust is to disassemble the laptop and clean out heatsink and fan.
Some laptops make this task really easy and it doesn't take much work to clean out the fan and heatsink, but a lot of consumer grade laptops require a full disassembly to access the heatsink and fan; making the task very difficult. If your laptop is like the latter and would rather leave it up to a professional, feel free to reach out. Below are few examples of laptops I have cleaned up.
