So I have a 2011 Asus i7 ROG gaming laptop. This is the model that has the big exhaust vents with separate heatsinks+fans for CPU and GPU.
It's entering its seventh year now now and has spent quite some time with the fans blowing the heat out. The culprit is usually IE, Firefox, or some rogue updater task that I might not see (or hear, as the case may be) for a few days.
It's still a great laptop; runs Windows 10 just fine. Is it time to pull the heatsinks and fans from this unit, give everything a good cleaning, and reapply the thermal paste? The TIM on my desktop's H80i waterblock can get quite crispy-crunchy-hard after just 24 months, and this laptop has been in service nearly 24/7 for most of its lifespan.
And while I'm in there, should I consider swapping out the fans for newer ones? Normally, I'd wait for noise or some other problem to present itself before replacing fans. But since this is a laptop, maybe it would be wiser for me to capitalize on time spent, since I'll be opening the case anyway.
Opinions?