A technician, Joe, is running a diagnostic program on a laptop when it shuts down after running for 10 minutes. Which of the following should he do before disassembling the laptop?

Laptops accumulate dust in heatsink fins and fan blades over time, restricting airflow and causing the CPU or GPU to overheat and trigger an automatic shutdown to prevent damage. Using compressed air to clear the vents is a safe, non-invasive corrective action that addresses the most common cause of thermal shutdown and should be attempted before opening the device.

A hard reset and reboot does not address the underlying thermal cause and will result in the same shutdown recurring.

CHKDSK checks for file system and disk errors, which are unrelated to a thermal shutdown during a CPU-intensive diagnostic.

Removing the battery forces the laptop to run on AC power only but does not resolve heat buildup from blocked airflow.