• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Laptop cooling: cooling pads

D

dalarev

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 23, 2007
Messages
78
Search brings up several threads on the topic, but they haven't become too popular. From notebookreview.com, "a laptop cooling pad is one of the most effective ways to cool laptop temperatures". Aside from undervolting and dusting the fans, which everyone should try, I think a cooling pad is necessary.

The core temps are the ones that skyrocket without fail when playing a semi-graphics-intensive game. The highest I have seen so far are ~80-85 C. Dell support tells me that as long as the computer doesn't give me a warning about overheating, I shouldn't worry about it, but in all honesty it's the flaming icons in speedfan that worry me the most. The hot Texas summer days (and nights, christ) don't really provide good room temperature, either.

I would think that reviews, in this case, are not really a good indication because, of course, the positions of the fans on the pads relative to the vents/exhausts on your laptop are crucial. However, after reading many reviews from many sites, I've narrowed my choice down to a final one (which could've been done in 1 minute by sorting by "Best reviews" on newegg).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834999412

The price is great at $20, and most of the reviews are positive.
For my particular laptop, Dell XPS Studio 16, the optimal fan positions on the pad would be on the upper left quadrant and on the lower half off-center to the right. I haven't even done the math on that pad to know if it'll "fit" my laptop.

A couple of reviews complain about the USB powering method VS. an external AC adapter, but to me that doesn't matter because I only game at home.

There's another even cheaper cooler, the Spire pacific breeze, which, according to reviews, has phenomenal cooling capabilities, but I can't find them in stock anywhere on the internets.
http://www.spirecoolers.com/main/product_detail.asp?ProdID=498


Hopefully someone has had experiences with any of these or can recommend a good alternative because, really, I think even dishing out $50 for a good cooling pad is a good investment.
 
Me , I would go to the garage and cut 4 or six wooden feet/blocks to raise the laptop up off my desk at a comfortable angle to make a decent airspace under the laptop, If I really felt crafty I would make a wooden frame/cradle but I feel lazy today. Then I would go to wal mart and buy a $12 6 or 8 inch desk fan with at least 3 speeds and the abilty to adjust the pointing of the fan and place it on the desk to the side or rear of the now slightly raised laptop and let it blow air under and around the laptop. If started up a game I would kick the fan up from low to med or high until I was done. Lot cheaper, likley last longer and most definately do a much better job- blah blah, blah.
 
With the Dell Studio's though, opening the screen to anything >90 degrees partially blocks the air vents on the back of the laptop, largely due to design flaw admitted by Dell.
 
Try to get as much information about the flow setup of the cooler and your laptop before you buy something. I'm not sure it's as big an issue now, but I remember in the past a lot of these actually hurt the cooling on Dell laptops because the cooler's fan was trying to suck air away from where the Dell's intake was. Apparently Dell had their airflow running backwards compared to everyone else's.

On my E6500, there were thick heat pads and gobs of thermal paste between the chips and the heatsink mating surfaces. Just replacing those with Zalman STG-1 dropped my temps a ton, but I had to tweak the heatpipes a bit so that it would sit lower and actually make contact with the chips when the extra 1/16" was gone.

With my old D610, the intake was under the left rear corner, and the exhaust was out the back just above it. The way the dock was shaped, it actually sort of directed the exhaust back toward the intake area. I cut a little chunk of styrofoam to fit under the back corner (it sat on the dock, then the laptop sat on the styrofoam) to separate the intake and exhaust areas a little better, and even that helped drop the temps.

If it supports your model, I8kfanGUI is very handy for Dell laptops.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top