Summary
laptop for gaming.. Now that you know which laptop is best for games, how do you take care of it? Installing Windows updates and GPU drivers is normal maintenance, but there are some very important mistakes you should not make if you want your game laptop to run smoothly.
laptop for gaming
As someone who has tested a lot of gaming laptops and used them for years, I know that some simple maintenance can keep your gaming laptop running at its best. Pay attention to these things.
Get it dirty
Take extra care of your game machine. It looks clear, right? You don’t want your expensive tech to get dusty or dirty. And then there’s that dog hair and dust that makes the laptop not work as well as it did when it was first bought. Also, a quick snack might have left some pieces on your computer.
It’s not just to look good. A very important part of maintaining your game laptop is keeping it clean. This will help it last longer. Proper heat management is something that all of these tips have in common. This is still an important part of a high-performance game laptop in 2023. When you let dust build up on the fans, they won’t cool as well and your parts won’t reach their full speed.
In what way are those temperature limits so important? I haven’t messed up a pricey game laptop yet, but I do have a good example of how much thermals can change things. The Asus ROG Strix G17 is about 20% faster in games than the Alienware x14 R2, even though both have an RTX 4060 GPU. It’s because the Strix is a much bigger laptop that it can cool much better.
I don’t think dust will cause a 20% drop in performance, but if you don’t keep your game laptop clean, you will definitely notice drop in performance. When it comes to game computers, cooling is very important, so get some compressed air and keep your machine clean.
Do not change it from speed mode
As a matter of fact, you shouldn’t always and any time run your game machine at full speed. You can switch between a few different performance modes on most gaming computers. For most games, you should leave the settings on the best performance mode. But the other modes are there for a reason, so use them.
Your laptop’s GPU and CPU will get more power when it is in the best performance mode, and the fan speed will also go up. This is great when you’re playing a tough game like Cyberpunk 2077, but it’s not a good idea when you’re not wanting to strain your machine.
Running your laptop in its fastest speed all the time won’t hurt it, but it will make it loud and drain the battery faster. You can switch to the balanced or even quiet mode when you’re just reading the web or doing other light tasks. This will save battery life and keep your laptop from making too much noise.
You can also use it when you’re online. The other day I played Sea of Stars on my Razer Blade 14. It’s a 2D turn-based RPG with pixel art. Even though it wasn’t even remotely hard for a Blade 14 with an RTX 4070, the fans were still running at full speed in the fastest mode. It worked great for me once I switched to the balanced mode. The fan noise was almost gone, and I didn’t have to worry about speed at all. When you play a game that doesn’t need your laptop to run as fast as it can, you should know that and switch to a better power mode.
Make use of both of your GPUs
This laptop is made for gamers and has two GPUs. This is the separate GPU that you use for games. This is the bundled GPU that is part of your processor. It’s not a very powerful GPU, but having it is a good way to save battery life when you’re not playing games.
The methods from both AMD and Nvidia work together. For Nvidia, it’s Optimus, and for AMD, it’s Hybrid graphics. If you want to get the most out of your battery life and speed, you should use both GPUs. However, this rarely works out in real life. Even if you’re plugged into the wall and don’t care about battery life, you’ll usually lose some game speed.
You can fix this by switching to only your separate GPU when you play games. You can do this in the Nvidia Control Panel or Radeon Software. There are games where speed won’t improve by much, but in others, getting rid of the native GPU could lead to gains of 10% or more.
Most new computers don’t have this problem as much as older ones did. Such as, Nvidia’s Advanced Optimus can instantly switch to the separate GPU, which keeps its promise of the best speed and battery life. Also, MUX switches are showing up more and more on game computers. These switches turn off the built-in graphics completely, but they drain the battery faster. But in both of these situations, make sure that your laptop can handle these features. If it doesn’t, you’ll have to switch between the chosen GPUs by hand.
Don’t bring your charger
Even though most gaming computers don’t have great battery life, you should still keep your charger close by. Not only will playing games on battery power slow you down, it will also shorten the life of your gaming machine.
In challenging gaming situations, most gaming computers can’t get all the power they need from the battery alone, even if you’re playing games in the highest speed mode. If you play games on your laptop without the charger plugged in, you’re missing out on a lot of power. that doesn’t even count the problems you’ll have with battery life.
Plus it drains your battery quickly. It used to be a bad idea to leave computers plugged in all the time, but these days it’s not as much of a problem. Most computers stop charging when the battery is fully charged, so the machine gets power without the battery being cycled. In the long run, letting your battery die and then fully charging it will hurt it more.
This only works if your machine is already being used. If you’re going to be away from your game laptop for a long time, make sure the battery is about half charged before turning it off, and don’t leave it plugged in during that time.
Increase the speed of your parts
You can boost the GPU in your gaming laptop without any problems. Some new Intel CPUs even let you do this. A lot of the time, it’s not a good idea. It all comes down to thermals, as you might have guessed.
There’s a reason why tools like ThrottleStop exist and are still being updated: many game computers can reach their thermal limits even at stock settings. Pushing your components any further won’t help your speed and could even shorten their lives. This is especially important if your parts are barely staying cool at stock settings.
But there’s more to this than meets the eye. Some parts of your laptop might work better if you overclock them, but it’s not always a good idea. Large computers like the MSI GT77 Titan can handle the extra heat, so you might be able to up the speed a bit. Additionally, some laptops, like the Asus ROG Zephyrus M16, come with software that lets you speed up the GPU. The overclock choice is safe to use at this level, so don’t worry about it.
While some computers can take a small increase, most of them can’t. It’s best to stick to the specs that your laptop was made to handle. Most laptop brands are already pushing their gaming laptops as far as they can go, even to the point where they slow down.
