Keeping Laptops Cool

Our laptop repeatedly was overheating, especially in the summer. We thought the fan had died.
We had no money to pay a repair person to replace our fan.
We tried to find an alternative to keep our laptop cool.
We blew a fan on it constantly during summer months.
Our electric bill went up.

Now we keep our fan cool a different way. A way that costs no money.

Laptops overheat when the vent at the bottom is blocked and air isn't able to get to the fan. Usually putting a computer on a flat surface will allow the vent to get as much as as it needs, but this often isn't enough in warmer weather.

Make a stand to keep the air flowing to your laptop.
We built a laptop stand out of a dumpster dived refrigerator grate as the base to allow air flow into the vent, and two halves of an old pencil cases as the "legs" to hold up the grate.

Once we made this stand, our computer no longer overheats on a regular basis. We no longer use a fan to cool off our computer.

On those rare days when it is hot hot hot and our computer is also, so it acts a little sluggish, we give the laptop an instacool by giving it an ice pack on its hot parts or sticking it into the fridge for a few minutes.
(I take no responsibility if this causes your laptop harm. It probably isn't great for the laptop, but we do it anyhow. Do proper research before taking a step like this.)

And that is my simple solution this Saturday.

Does your laptop overheat frequently? What do you do to stop it from overheating?