Laptop random hangs and high fan speed intervals

[Hercubla]

My laptop has been working like a dream until a week ago though, when while it was idle, the fan became very loud and active. The next day I went to use my laptop, namely to play D3 but never the less regardless of what I'm doing on the laptop it hangs and the fan takes off then it's all good again. The lag lasts about 2-3 seconds and then the laptop is as speedy as ever but in some cases the lag spikes are less than 10 seconds apart. If there is a hard ware problem I'm not sure how to diagnose it. Or it could be a problem with a recent update...

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120330-1504)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
System Model: G73Sw
BIOS: BIOS Date: 11/23/10 22:18:25 Ver: 04.06.03
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8170MB RAM
Page File: 2682MB used, 13653MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI

 

[Nibiru2012]

To me, this does not sound as if it's software related at all. Hardware issues are what I first thought of; that is your CPU cooler setup. My first suspicion would be dust and lint accumulation inside the notebook's case. Get a can of any brand of "air duster" and thoroughly blast out your case's vents, intakes, etc. Try that and see what results you get from visible dust blown out and then boot it up and see what happens then.

I recommend downloading a handy utility called:

Hmonitor 4.5.3.2 (January 2012)

OVERVIEW

This program monitors and displays hardware parameters
collected by the several sensor chips, installed on certain
motherboards. Program can monitor temperatures
of CPU/motherboard/graphics cards/HDD, voltages and cooler fans RPMs.

Program can be used with any modern Microsoft Windows operating
system (Windows 7/Vista/2008/2003/XP/2000/NT4) on X86/X64 based platform.

KEY FEATURES

- ultra wide range of MB models supported;
- low resources usage;
- dynamic system tray status icon;
- current values are visible as a hint;
- detailed/warning log files can be produced;
- customizable alarms/user application execute;
- HDD S.M.A.R.T. and temperature monitoring (Pro license need);
- Graphics cards hardware monitoring (Pro license need);
- PerfMon/WMI/SNMP support to check the data (Commercial license need);

INSTALLATION

To perform installation you should be logged on as a member of administrators group.
To start installation, simply run setup.exe file.
After successful installation, you may launch hmonitor.exe without rebooting.

Another good one is: Real Temp http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/