Review: Zalman NC1000 Revisited (1 Year Later)

If I had to pick a cooler off the top of my head that is the most popular and most bought on the forums it would have to be the NC1000. People fall for its solid build, looks, and charm despite the fact that it is not the cheapest cooler on the block.

If you had asked me or many of the other veterans we would have told you the pros/cons. Highlights being that its near silent, super well built, looks great. Cons being that it has very low CFM (air movement) for a cooler so depending on your laptop you may not actually gain much cooling, the price, and its kind of heavy too if your a weight wennie

Well anybody can give a review when the first get a shiny new product in there hands. Weeks or even months later its still only a semi informative review. What really matters is when it is revisited, after the test of time has run its toll.

So here we are the Zalman NC 1000 1 Year Later:

First of all, it is still running just fine, both of the fans are working just as they used too and I have not seen any temp changes in my notebooks. Second the unit self is holding up great. Nothing is broken and the most important thing for me with this cooler still holds true, its a great support for my laptop to give it a tilt to type on.

Here are the problems though.

1.) The power cable usb port is loose. This is only because of me I admit because I unplug the cord from my laptop and leave it in the cooler and then put it in my bag, so moving around in the bag it has wiggled that usb plug around. It makes cable management easier and makes getting it in/out of my bag faster not removing that cable. It is still working fine just that it is very noticeably loose now.

2.) Some of the paint has worn off on the front of the unit. I really really take care of my stuff its on a desk or in my bag, however again this happened due to me at least to a small degree. The NC1000 goes in my book bag right next to my power brick. The friction of the two rubbing together caused some paint to come off. Soon as I noticed this was happening I started to put the cooler in reverse so the power brick sat next to the bottom of the cooler. Since I have done that no more paint loss has occurred and it does not seem to damage the bottom of the cooler since its a plastic.

3.) Its no longer silent, nor can I do maintenance to it. This is the big problem and what really provoked me to do the follow up review. I have for the last 4 months or so noticed fan noise. I never use my laptop without the cooler so I thought it must be my new G50's fans, since I noticed the noise about the same time I sold my C90S and moved to the G50. I just so happened to unplug the cooler a month or so ago to get some pictures off a camera and *poof* fan noise was gone and all was silent.

I had to double check, sure enough when the cooler came back on the noise was back. I mean this is significant I can hear it in the back office at work next to a comm room filled with computer towers with like 30 fans in them and 100 hard drives. Its a very low frequency more like air noise than fan noise. However considering what I said before that the NC1000 only had a few good selling points and one of the top points was that it is SILENT, and we took the trade off for silence to performance. This cooler is not a high performer compared to many others.

So it has lost half its reason for existence. The other problem is maintenance. If I look under the cooler I can see minor dust buildup on the fans. I figure the noise may be due to buildup, or maybe the fans just need a drop of oil. So I would naturally take it apart and clean it out. But you can't! This thing is sealed shut and I can see no way to take it apart without breaking it.

There are screws on the top but taking those out and the unit is still in one very solid piece. Maybe glued together, and perhaps even screws under the rubber feet that are also glued on. Just blowing air into the fans from the outside is not good. It has to be taken apart for proper cleaning. Also if you can't fix the fans with a cleaning, you would maybe juts replace them.

You have a $50 cooler so whats $10 worth of fans to keep it like new.... Well they are not standard fans, so you can not replace them even if you could get into it. So yet again a problem. Many other coolers use standard computer fans so you can just replace them when the time comes.

So all this in mind. I say the NC1000 for a long term investment as a cooler is not a great product. There are other units for less money that cool better, and can be taken apart for maintenance.

It does however for a short term product work great, it still has one of the most attractive bodies, and is very solidly built. If your like me and want performance and great life in a product you may want to pass. If your a person with a larger income and you find yourself replacing stuff often then the drawbacks may not apply to you much.

Pictures:

Top



Bottom



Fan Dust

 

Have you tried to open the cooler and clean the dust off the fans? That reduces long term noise.. (I would do it at the 1 year point when warranty is gone)

 

Did you even read what I wrote? You can open it as far as I can tell it seems super solid. I removed all visible screws and it will not come open. I do not want to rip off the rubber strips/feet to see if there are other screws under them.

 

Great... Not only did I waste money on what is essentially an expensive stand, I also can now expect it to drive me crazy soon as well as tarnish pretty badly. Oh well, at the very least I can't see it.

 

Eh it did not tarnish, its holding up great actually. The small amount of paint loss was from bouncing around in my bag next to the power brick. I admit though that I treat my stuff better than most people do.

The dust sucks though, I use it at work 99% of the time and my workplace is very dust free. When I removed all the visible screws I did not get any kind of movement or see any place to take it apart it seems that its one piece or glued together or something. That or there are still more screws under the rubber but I do not want to break it to fix it lol.

 

Actually I did read but heavy jet lag sorry no need to be cranky though bud....

I understand you not wanting to remove the rubber, an alternative would be to use q-tips to get in the areas you cant reach where the fan is.

 

Thats not cranky Its hard to see that I am stating something not "yelling" since it is just font.

I am gonna hit it with my air compressor next time I have it out. Its what I use to clean out my PC's if that doesnt get it clean nothing will. Plus I have no idea if it will fix the fan noise. That little bit of dust should have no effect. So I am much more prone to thinking its the fans bearings or design to blame.

I also just think that they should make it easy to take apart and have replaceable fans. If I do take it apart looks like it may be time for my 120mm fan mod.

 

today, i couldn't stand the weak airflow of the fan (btw its been almost 2 years since i had these) so i decided to open it up.

but guess what? half of the screws are not visible!

there are 4 screws in the front and another 6 screw under the front rubber strips... ( 2 top, 4 bottom row). I just ended up pulling the rubber strips apart and getting the screws out....

btw the sticky material to hold the rubber to the cooler seems like double sided tape of some sort.

after i cleaned out every thing... i just screwed it back on and applied the rubber strips back on. the rubber strips are surprisingly still sturdy even when i reused the sticky tape. (oh and most of my sticky tape were torn off when i pulled it out.... )

 

I just opened my NC2000 and cleaned out the dust from the fans... definitely improved any noise that was caused from clogged dust.

 

Hmm what did you have to do to take it apart. I know its not rocket science but I have not tried to take mine apart again since that one time.

 

It should seperate like butter. There are screws under every rubber foot on the top side of the cooler (as stated before) you will have to peel them all (They all stick again) ..and remove the obvious ones then it should practically fall apart

 

Meh guess I will do it, if the feet dont go back willingly I have hot glue on standby .

 

Just be careful when you peel and it should be fine. if the sticky stuff is sticking to the cooler just try from the opposite side of the rubber doohickey

 

whoops forgot to reply to this thread.

the NC2000 has 11 screws (all on top of the stage area) from my count:
- 4 on the stage (where the holes are)
- 2 screws under the top rubber stands (on top section of the stage)
- 5 screws under the long rubber strip (on bottom section of the stage)

 

Im gonna clean it out, Im selling the G50V probably and upgrading to the W90 as a 18" laptop.. (if you can call it that) its not going to fit on the NC1000 so selling it as part of the G50V care package and will have to get a NC2000 or something similar.

 

nice follow up. it's nice to read reviews that are unbiased.

not sure if it's a good idea to get another zalman unit if u'r next laptop will be that big. tryin to line up yur vents with that big of a laptop would probably suck on the nc2000. i still stand by my cryo LX and it's very well thought out design. good luck and hope u work out yur small dilemma.