Possible overheat. Am I in any danger?

Question

I was playing Mass Effect on my Samsung R480 laptop when it started freezing up for a second or two. Eventually it just powered down. I assume this is due to an overheat. Is it extremely necessary that I bring it to Samsung to have it checked? Also, what can I do to prevent this from happening again save for playing in an air-conditioned room?

Here are my specs:
Intel i3-350M processor
4GB RAM
nVidia GT 330M GPU with 2GB RAM
On-board sound

EDIT: Thank you for all your answers, but if you have time, please refer to this link. The problem has changed.

Answer 1

You don't have to worry about anything, it happened so many times on a cheap Acer laptop..

What can you do? Buy a notebook cooler. Check the vent positions, and buy a cooler which fits and which would cool it MUCH better. There you go. :)

Answer 2

Something to consider is that components shut down not because they're in danger, but because they would be in danger if they kept getting hotter.

Obviously a forced shutdown isn't good, but the only thing it risks damaging is your filesystem, if you were in the middle of writing to the disk. However, that doesn't mean you should ignore it, a machine should not overheat with stock clocks and stock coolers, so I suggest giving it a good clean, and if that's still not helping, Shiki's suggestion of a cooler would certainly help.

Answer 3

Sounds like it was an overheating issue. As I understand it, the CPU is designed to shut off like that when the temperature gets too high to prevent damage. If you've got problems with the laptop overheating, the first thing you might want to do is to check if the vent for the CPU cooler is clogged up with dust, and if the CPU fan is even working at all. The latter happened to me just a few months ago and caused symptoms similar to what you're describing.