Hi my name is Steve, my Acer M5811 CPU fan is running at high speeds since a couple of months now and after 2 minutes of gaming, it's game over for my Acer. I've applied cooling gel to no avail. I guess I'll have to replace either my CPU or fan. Can anyone give me a clue what I should do next?

Overheating When the CPU overheats then it will shut down (i.e. thermal overload) and won't boot up again until it has cooled down. If this is the problem is not fixed then the CPU will eventually fail.
A faulty fan causes the problem or the fan and heat sink assembly are clogged with dust.
Check the CPU fan to see if it spins freely, if not replace the fan.
If the fan and heat sink is clogged with dust the remove the dust and make sure the vents are clear and dust free. Use a small brush and can of compressed air to do this.

Sounds like you have dust and dirt blocking your air flow. You probably need to take the laptop apart to get to the CPU fan and heat dissipation unit. You need to clean out all the dust in there to let the air flow freely. Get a service manual to help you take the laptop apart or find a local repair expert.

When the CPU overheats then it will shut down (i.e. thermaloverload) and won't boot up again until it has cooled down. If this is theproblem is not fixed then the CPU will eventually fail.
A faulty fan causes the problem or the fan and heat sink assembly are cloggedwith dust.
Check the CPU fan to see if it spins freely, if not replace the fan.
If the fan and heat sink is clogged with dust the remove the dust and make surethe vents are clear and dust free. Use a small brush and can of compressed airto do this.

i have acer power fv desktop win 7 1gb ram ,CPU fan running high speed

hi there:) you didn't mention the power supply...Is it enough to run the new board and/or the graphix card, which you also didnt mention:) tell me the answer to these two questions and we'll go from there. P.S. Your fan, from what you described, is working exactly as it is supposed to:)

When you are playing a game, your CPU has to work a lot and a lot of heat is released. To cool it down, the fans run at a high speed making that bad sound. Playing a song does not require a lot of CPU work. To reduce this get a additional fan which can control heat without making noise. Make sure your CPU and the Heat sinkers present are free of dust.

Are you sure the temperatures are ok? When I run DIVX Plus Converter on the Z5610 the CPU (intel Q8200) is running (naturally) at a high load. Speed Fan 4.42 shows rising temperatures going north of 90 degrees C. If only DIVX Converter runs the temperatures of the CPU cores is around 92 to 94 degrees C. But if I start browsing the internet the temperatures go close to 100 degrees C. When one of the cores reaches 100 degrees C Speed Fan shows MINUS temperatures on the cores (-10 to - 20 deg C). Speed Fan is just monitoring as it can not even detect the Fan.
When that happens the Fan stops completely!! And short after that the computer switches of (same as if you would pull the plug).
Obviously there is a bug in the BIOS or the Motherboard which leads to interpretion of temperatures above 100 degrees C as MINUS temperatures which leads to the stop of the fan.
I am sure that also happens whenever you use a CPU intensive program (like a game or any other video converter/rendering program). You might download a temerature monitoring program (i.e. Speed Fan - its free) and see for yourself. Also listen whether the fan stops working compltely (goes completely silent) when the PC overheats and short before it switches off. Let's see what ACER says to that.
I used to like ACER. But first Aspire 4310 tripping frequently because the VGA chip overheats and now that stupid fault ==> never ever ACER again. I will use the Z5610 for internet surfing and get a real all-in-one which you can use. That is a clear sign for me that ACER does not test their machines at all under full load - or knowingly sells faulty machines.

restart your system press DEL and enter the bios you will see hardware monitor in the cpu fan click enable this will keep your fan working when you start you system

YES I CAN HOW MUCH RAM IS IN IT WHAT TYPE OF GFX CARD IS IN WHATS THE CPU SPEED? if you have low memory then you will need more i recomend 2 gb of ram min for gaming and a good 512 mb gfx card hope this helps

Hey, its overheating, not much you can do about it, try one of those cooling pads. Did a little modification on mine back in the day, I put a cpu cooler from a desktop computer on top of the video card on the laptop, happened to be in a good spot, wont be a good idea for most laptops.