How to prevent intermittent crashing and magenta screen on MacBook Pro M1 due to overheating?

Cinnamoncrumbs wrote:

My MB Pro M1 2020 periodically shows the dreaded magenta screen and crashes. I updated to Sequoia 15.4 OS from 15.3.1 and have 109 GB of 245 GB available. It is possible the machine is overheating, for it crashes less often if I put it in the fridge for an hour or two before use.

IF overheating is the issue, is there a fix?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Is the machine hot? Otherwise I would not suspect it is overheating— you do not clarify the assumption to speculate...

unplug all non-essential peripherals when testing

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

To trouble shoot further you can:

—A SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations (GFX) are disabled temporarily.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

This test will tell you if third party interference; most extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.

—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 

If no insight or resolve—

Apple Silicon Mac: Apple Diagnostics for Self Service Repair

Apple Silicon Mac: Apple Diagnostics for Self Service Repair - Apple Support

Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac

Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac - Apple Support

13-inch Macbook Pros get most of their cooling air through the hinge area and the keyboard. If either s blocks by a hard case, keyboard cover, or stuff on your workstation, the computer will overheat. The hinge is also where hot air is exhausted.

Good information here:

Keep your Mac laptop within acceptable operating temperatures - Apple Support

...or it crashes less often if I put it in the fridge for an hour or two before use.

Unless you live in a desert environment, that WILL cause condensation inside the computer that will eventually destroy it.

Ill-advised installation of anti-virus or so-called "cleaning" apps will also increase temperatures as they compete with elegant and automated protection and maintenance routines you paid Apple to build into macOS.