During gaming, my computer will freeze. I've attempted to re-create the circumstances under which it does this, but this is about as narrowed as I can make it. Sometimes it'll work fine for hours on end, sometimes it will freeze five minutes into a session. The only pattern that I can find here is that it is happening more frequently, which leads me to believe that it could be hardware deterioration. I've also ran a PC diagnostic (the one found on this site) and found no issues. I've ran a virus scan with no issues, defragmented the hard drive, tested heat under high load (stays about 80 degrees C, 50 when idle).
A little backstory:
For a while, whenever I was running a game on reasonably high graphics settings, it would work fine for a few minutes and the frame rate would gradually go down. I did some troubleshooting and discovered that this was due to lack of proper cooling and that the processor was underclocking to keep from reaching a critical temperature point. I took the laptop into Best Buy and had the fan, heatsink, and motherboard cleaned out and it worked beautifully for the first month after it came back. Before the cleaning, the processor would go up to as much as 95 degrees celcius under high load, now it floats around 70-75.
Now, it will freeze whenever the graphics card or processor comes under high load. Which leads me to hypothesize that this is the result of heat damage.
A couple notes about whenever the computer freezes:
Computer stops responding and screen stays in same position as it was before the freeze. Fans continue running and lights stay on, otherwise appearing to run normally aside lack of response. Any USB connected device appears to stop working as the lights that would normally light up are off.
No other solution than to restart to computer to return it to original state.
I'd like to possibly fix this in the comfort of my own home, but I doubt it. Any ideas?