Right, I've had this laptop (I don't know the specs, but it's a HP G72 with Windows 7 if that helps, got it new three years ago.

I've had overheating issues for the last year and a half-two years, whereby anything even slightly excessive will overheat it and it'll switch off. This includes playing pretty much any of my games (except RollerCoaster Tycoon2, which it just about manages with). If I'm streaming a football match or endurance race, it'll overheat if I leave it full screen for more than 5 minutes, and on the little small box it just manages. I can't stream more than one thing at a time either, including something as simple as low bandwidth iPlayer.

When I'm doing stressful stuff I tend these days to prop it up with my camera case to keep all the vents open, and usually place it so the main vent to the far left corner is over the edge of whatever the laptop is resting on, this does seem to help.

So, could anyone offer any help/suggestions as to how to fix this? The laptop has been dropped a couple of times but I didn't notice anything wrong after those. The battery is virtually dead (only lasts a couple of minutes as it's my first laptop and didn't realise that'd happen if you leave it plugged in whenever you use it, which I now have to do. Would getting a new battery (I'd get a brand new official one probably) help at all?

A more tech-y housemate (I'm good with Pc's once they're on, not fixing them or opening them up) suggested spraying compressed air into the fan vent which didn't help really.

Thanks in advance for any advice.