Making a desk mounted cooling pad

I've just built myself a new desk with plenty of room for my laptop on the desk and monitor plus keyboard etc for my gaming setup. However, as some of you will be aware, the hp dv5 can get a bit toasty when gaming, so i figured i wanted a cooling pad. Looking at all the ones on the market, they are all obviously universal and the fans dont line up with areas which get particularly hot on your individual laptop.
What i was thinking of doing was to cut holes in the desk for 3fans, lining a 80mm's with the cpu/gpu and hdd and a 120mm covering the wifi/ram.

The thing i dont know is whether to mount the fans in the desk so that is drawing air from the big space under the desk and blowing onto the hot areas, or whether to reverse them so that the fans are drawing air away from them. My guess was that cooling pads work by feeding cold air to the hot areas, so that the heat transfer from the hot areas is quicker? Is this correct or do they function by drawing hot air away?

Cheers in advance.

ps. i'll post some pics up when i start building.
x

 

In either case where you buy a notebook cooler or decide to build one your self, make sure the air flow direction is same as as the notebook Meaning that if the notebook sucks air from underneath, then you should blow air on to the notebook; OR if the air is pushed out from underneath then your fans should suck the air out from underneath, otherwise fans will work against each other and reduce the effective air flow.

Take a piece of paper and hold it very close to the air vents underneath the notebook, you can figure out the air flow direction by looking at it's movement. Usually notebooks have intake vents at the bottom and exhaust vents on the side.

 

Cheers for the advice, just tested it and as you said (and as makes sense) the intakes are on the base, therefore I would need the fans to push air into those vents.
Also is there an easy way to use a mains power supply with the 12v fans?
I also wouldn't mind a device to control the speed of the fans which I could mount on the desk, should i just use a variable resistor (dial one) mounted in the desk?

 

Fan speed controllers are usually variable resistors; you could use one of those with a 12V DC power supply, or get a 12V variable power supply and change the voltage instead.

 

i would really go against making somethin like a notebook cooler, stationary. that automatically kills the cooler's versatility.

i would recommend a DYI cooler instead. u will have all the cooling power from a stationary unit, plus the versatility. it would also be a much easier and more efficient method. if u start off with an angled base, for your DYI cooler, it will also improve typing comfort and viewing levels.