My MSI Katana 15 B13V usually reaches the high 70s or low 80s Celsius while playing demanding games such as Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 6. Recently, though, it has been sitting around 87–88°C even while playing a much smaller, less demanding game called Dressmaker. I have already cleaned the fans and tried using an Ewent cooling tray, but neither made a noticeable difference. The tray is currently only useful for raising the laptop and improving its airflow. My technical knowledge is limited, so I'm wondering whether these temperatures are normal, whether the game's small storage size matters, and if there is anything I should check or repair.
3 Answers
The listed minimum requirements do not mean the game will run cool; they only describe the weakest hardware capable of launching it. Since your laptop has an RTX 4070, the game may be rendering far more frames than necessary. Use an in-game frame cap or the NVIDIA control panel to limit the FPS, then see whether the temperature drops. If it remains around 88°C but stays below the laptop’s thermal limit, that is usually not an emergency.
Make sure the laptop is sitting on a hard surface with the intake vents unobstructed. Raising the rear with a stand or a couple of books can help more than many inexpensive cooling pads. Also compare the temperature with the room temperature, since a warmer room can easily add several degrees. I would not jump straight to replacing the thermal paste unless the laptop is older, temperatures continue rising, or you see throttling or unusual fan behavior.
The game taking only 1 GB of storage does not tell you how much heat it produces. Temperature depends more on CPU/GPU usage, frame rate, graphics settings, fan behavior, and room temperature. A lightweight-looking game can still run the GPU at high usage if it has an uncapped frame rate. Check your CPU and GPU utilization, and try enabling a frame limit or V-Sync. Around 87–88°C is warm but generally within the expected range for a gaming laptop, especially if performance is stable and the system is not throttling.
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