Over heating issues

When EQ running check your Task Manager and what is loading the CPU, could be a compatibility issues with one or more background apps. EQ is a rather light load per thread, even on older hardware but it may not be friends with all your running apps.

IF the heat issue is JUST EQ is it related to EQ but may not actually be EQ itself. Look to shut down unneeded tasks and test to see if it does resolve the issue, or make a difference.

Seems like there are multiple problems if the fans do not turn on just for EQ. First you should check the CPU usage for EQ, then the CPU temperature.

Air cooled systems fans should always be running regardless of what program(s) are running. Now the fan speeds can be variable based off the temp of the CPU and GPU. Normally cheap laptops lack in cooling design so like someone else said, a laptop cooler is a must for a laptop. If you have an NVIDIA GPU, set the power usage to adapt, not performance. Also set the power usage to Balanced in windows settings, this will only ramp up the CPU if it's needed and help keep CPU temps low when CPU usage is low.

I use a program called Throttlestop to show both my CPU and GPU temps in my task tray. I can downclock my CPU through that program. You can downclock the GPU using other programs.

I thought cpu fans ran all the time regardless.
edit: oops ninjaed

"Zero" fan mode has become more widespread both in GPUs and CPUs. Now usually a CPU fan will spin at a low rpm at least, but I can set 0 on my systems. Most of it depends on the fan vs temp control curve.

If you have a "quiet" mode or like setting the fan may not spin, in modern systems the wide use of heat pipes is very effective at moving heat to the heatsink. My work laptop is silent for many operations as is my Legion 5 Pro as I write this, not sure the fans are zero, but so low rpm it is not audible for sure.

However as soon as a CPU is stressed the heat will rise causing the fans to ramp up based on the curve, if you game, choosing a "performance" mode is preferable to ensure over heating is not an issue especially in a laptop. Heat is the bane of all computer components. I have never heard of a gaming application causing issue with the fans, but anything is possible when inter-app compatibility is concerned.

Curious to see a SS of Task Manager and the application CPU load percentage.

What other apps do you run with EQ that you don't run with other games? ELP? GINA? Discord?

It's curious that the fan stays off just for EQ.

If this is an enthusiast laptop it likely has software built in that can defeat any default cooling curves.

If the system overheats, the system is broken. EQ may push the CPU hard (or the GPU but I doubt that).
Either way, nothing can make your computer overheat except a bad computer.

Is it possible your cpu fan is plugged into the wrong header? Like maybe the MB thinks its turning off the GPU fan? In that case the cpu fan would work for most games that use the GPU more but would turn off in EQ since it hardly uses the GPU.

edit: come to think, I guess the gpu doesnt plug its fan into a separate header, but I know the MB does have several fan headers and you do need to plug the cpu fan into the right one.