Hi,

I've had my Dell Inspiron 15R SE for a year and 3 months. Unfortunately, over the last couple of months the laptop has been getting incredibly hot when playing games to point where it has cut out a couple of times.

This is playing games on the lowest spec/graphics quality and after setting high performance in the CCC to enable the graphics card. For example, my wife can play Skyrim on her laptop which is a much lower spec than my Inspiron with clear frame rates and it stays cool. Doing so on my Inspiron results in overheating quickly on the same quality settings.

I've tried using compressed air on the vents of my laptop in case it's a dust issue, but not sure if I should get into taking it to bits to check the fans more thoroughly.

However, I'm not sure if it actually is a fan issue or a hardware issue. I've run optimisers to make sure my system is running efficiently too. I currently have Windows 8.1.

If there are any suggestions on how to fix this I'd be really grateful as currently it is pointless even trying to run games I used to be able to play without major issue.