More performance from my Aspire e17?

So I have a laptop:

Intel Core i5 7200 U
Nvidia GeForce 940MX
16 GB DDR4 RAM
120 GB SSD and 1 TB SSD

I also want to play games or edit videos on my laptop every now and then, but it depends a bit on the performance. They say I don't get a stable 30 FPS in many games on the lowest settings (Minecraft on the lowest settings almost 60)

I think you see the problem, which then leads to the question:

How do I get as much performance out of this thing as possible? It's not about playing on extreme graphics, I would only like to have around 40-60 FPS at the lowest settings. And I wouldn't have anything against nine small boosts in normal operation either 😂.

I've already tried cooling, but that only prevents FPS drops (partially) and generally doesn't do much for FPS.

I'm open to all suggestions that don't break anything!

If it gets hot, take it to an expert to clean it up. As far as that is possible during this time.

Otherwise run a maleware scanner or ad cleaner over it.

Make sure that the hard drives are not full.

Play games that require less power.

Buy new, nothing usually loads on laptops and OC is rarely possible and usually makes little sense.

It's generally about increasing performance, not about getting hot that was just a side note

Naturally. With notebooks, however, it is common that they tend to overheat after a while. Sensors detect that, for example, the CPU is getting too hot and clock it down, which means you have less power. So with a cool notebook you get more performance when it tends to get hot.

So I looked in the task manager and the processor is running at maximum turbo clock. And the GraKa has a utilization of around 90%

You can't get more out of the games, unfortunately. It all depends on your CPU and, above all, your GPU and the latter is pretty weak, many current titles just can't do it anymore. Apart from RAM (which is easily enough) and hard drives, your laptop is unfortunately not upgradeable either.

However, you may be able to ensure that it reaches its maximum performance again if it is held back by overheating. Removing the back cover and dusting it is usually enough, exchanging thermal paste can also help a lot. But now I don't think that something is overheating about you so much (if at all) that it really affects your performance.

In normal operation, you benefit above all from having Windows installed on the SSD, which I assume. If it's full, a bigger one won't hurt.

Otherwise, apart from buying a more powerful device or using a gamestream service such as Geforce Now (good internet a must!), You will not be able to do anything. The games will continue to run badly because of the weak hardware.

Drivers are all up to date, right? That can also help a little to update the times.

So always connect the laptop to the power supply to play your laptop. Focus on maximum performance in energy management. Do not let Windows manage the swap file (invisible "Pagefile.sys) automatically. Just set it to drive C with a fixed start and end value of 8192MB, save and restart. A black nylon stocking helps as reliable dust protection for both of my laptops. I just pulled it via the unscrewable floor panels via the ventilation slots. No more dust mice in the fan and cooling slots and easy to remove dust with a brush on the outside. Every 2-3 years I renew the thermal paste and thermal pads. The fans never run at the highest speeds and the temps do not exceed 70 ° cool with one and 75 ° with the other.

Can you recommend a thermal compound for me? And how do I exchange them?

Even if you were to use the best thermal compound in the world, it would have no noticeable effect on the speed of the system, in the end you just apply it incorrectly and the system overheats even faster. You can't do magic with a laptop, so put up with it.