Reddit reviews Laptop Cooling Pad ,DreamSky Portable Laptop Cooler ,Faster Cooling And USB Powered,Support Various Size 14inch To 17inch Laptop/Notebook

yeah, this kinda thing.

Its a laptop, their cooling systems get built up with dust and also the thermal compounds start to dry up and degrade. Try dusting it out as best you can with some compressed air and invest into a decent cooling pad of some sort. Something like this might do the trick https://www.amazon.com/Cooling-DreamSky-Portable-Powered-Notebook/dp/B00MVRBOIC/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1469764139&sr=1-3-spons&keywords=laptop+cooler&psc=1

Yeah, open it up, clean the radiator and fan exhaust. A note about cooling mats/pads/things the ones you put your laptop on only work well if you have a bottom exhaust or intake. If you have a side intake/exhaust get something similar to this

I'm the guy who nearly tossed my x201 (2.67 Ghz i7 with turbo boost up to 3.3Ghz, 8gb ram, 256 gb SSD). About 6 months ago it started over-heating to the point of dying every twenty minutes. I had to have one of these monsters attached to the vent whenever I used it. That vacuum fan was a big hassle to carry around and meant I was 1 USB port down. About 3 months ago the internal wifi card stopped working so I bought one of these. Those tiny usb wifi cards suck because the antenna is so small, and that also meant I was another USB port down. Finally, the plastic door to my hard-drive bay cracked so my hard-drive kept slipping out in my back-pack.

I ended up buying thermal paste on amazon (~$10), a new wifi chip on ebay (~$8), a new fan (~$5) and a new hard-drive door (~$6). It took me about 3 hours to take the laptop apart, and another two to put it back together. I re-pasted the CPU, replaced the fan (just to be safe... the old one worked fine), and installed the new wifi card. I had to completely disassemble twice after completely re-assembling it (god that sucked) first because the power-port wasn't aligned with the chassis and plug would not go into the laptop, and second because I didn't run the wifi antenna cables very well. I still need to buy and install a new thermal pad for the GPU - I didn't order one because I didn't expect to find one in there (thought it would be all paste). The current GPU thermal pad is cracked and aging.

Anyway, now my x201 is back together and working like a charm. Wifi signal is great, and it runs nice and cool (~40 degrees idle - it's still breaking in). Ran 20 cycles of IntelBurnTest on "High" and it passed with flying colors. I have all of my USB ports available, battery lasts longer. And the SSD doesn't slip out of the bay all the time. All in all, definitely worth the effort and minimal money! Here she is in all her ThinkPad glory.