GT680R GPU overheating/ Random freezes/crashes

Question

Hey thanks in advance for any help. I bought this laptop a little over a year ago, and most of the time it has be great. Every once in a while though I would be playing a game and the system would freeze up to the point that it would require me to force power down. Understandable, most likely was doing something stupid anyway. I reduced the graphics quality, and things worked again. Then while playing graphics intensive games after a few minute FPS would drop to an unplayable level I would alt-tab out and wait for things to cool down and then be good to go for another ten minute. Shitty but normal usage still worked, and maybe my computer just can't handle skyrim. The last few weeks however every time I try to play a round of lol, the temp of my GPU reaches >104°C causing my laptop to shutdown. Okay maybe I shouldn't play games on this PC at all;, Unfortunately when left on for long periods of time(over night) with nothing major running, the computer shuts it self down.
I do not think my symptoms are caused by viruses, I've run both Comodo and Mbam, with no result, and reformatted the laptop with no change. I am quite worried of the direction that things seem to be going, and would like some advice on how to proceed. I have been thinking about opening it up and checking for dust and fan blockage, but am new to the hardware side of computers (was a macfag). Sorry for the wall of text
my specs are MSI GT680R
Intel Core i7-2630QM
Nvidia Geforce GTX 460M 1.5 GDDR5
RAM DDR3 8GB(4GB*2)
TL;DR progressive crashes, framedrops, overheating( advice needed)

Answer 1

Quote from: Buluunee on 05-January-13, 07:07:55
just cleaning dust out of it aint enuff to do the trick. apply new thermal paste, since its getting 104C plus then your thermal paste on gpu n cpu prbly dried out. go to nearest pc store and grab a some mid priced thermal paste and watch an instruction on how to apple thermal paste from youtube or read some forum about. when you just clean the dust out of your nb it will prbly drop max 10 decrees and apple new thermal paste to both cpu and gpu. it can drop 20-25 degrees. ITS advised to apple new thermal paste to both CPU and GPU once a year.  In addition, get  DUAL fanned nb cooler with 120mm or bigger fan
Well I opened it up and there was nothing, no dust no jammed fans, so I'm just trying to figure out the RMA system since I'm still under warranty. But it does sound like the thermal paste dried out.