I have a Dell Inspiron N5110 with a 2.5Ghz i5-2450M processor, 4GB RAM and 1GB nVidia Graphics card running Windows 7 Home Premium, that's about 2 years old now.
When I previously used to play games like Skyrim: Elder Scrolls V and MS Flight Simulator X, the system would heat up a lot, but never used to automatically turn off. In recent days, when I play these same games (even at the lowest setting), the systems heats up, but automatically shuts down.
What can be causing this and how can this be stopped? Someone said I need to open up the system and put in new thermal paste. Is this the thing? Or could there be something else behind it.
I don't use a cooling pad, but there's sufficient ventilation. The cooling fan works fine and spins really hard. I don't have an Anti Virus program running as well, since this laptop isn't connected to the Internet. I updated all the drivers last week.
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