CoolerMaster Notepal U3 - any one used one?

Ok, so I did buy an NZXT Cryo LX (rare to get one in the UK) but it was busted and even replacement parts didnt get it working right so am back on the hunt for a decent cooler.

I had seen the notepal U3 a while back but again, in the UK, they werent available.....but now they are!

Sooooo.....i was wondering if any of you guys have used or owned one and would appreciate any opinions / feedback on how they perform.

Im thinking its pretty good even tho the fans arent as big as the cryo which were 120mm x3, the U3 has x80mm x3 and are positionable so i can line 'em up with the gpu's and cpu pretty well i think.

Anyways....opinions and stuff welcomed!

 

Also been on the hunt for a Cooling Pad. Specially the Cryo.

That pad you linked though looks promising with positionable 80mm Fans

 

I wouldn't touch 80mm fans. They aren't efficient as 120mm and get noisy quickly over time. There's a reason 80mm fans are extinct on pc cooling(water or air) market these days.

 

Some info here on notepal U3

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/523915-pics-cooling-mods-done-tx-4-clip-mod-18.html

 

Cheers for the link Sauce....methinks im gonna have to order myself one of them....it was always a toss up between the cryo and this....i could get neither in the uk until recently.

Now that the U3 is readily available, and at HALF the cost of the cryo, its a real no brainer, especially in terms of cpu temps.

When i had the cryo, it didnt really seem to do a great deal, in fact, in certain instances, it raised temps......very odd.

Anyway, thanks for the link and to Alexnvidia for his post about it.

 

I find Notepal U3 to be really good for the price. i'll summarize the pros and cons for you (mini review). i'll try to get pictures up later

Pros
1. Price, no question about it. half the price, much easier to get one (UK), no fuss and performs superbly compared to overpriced, overhyped cryo. cryo may be the best of the best out there, but the next closest alternative is notepal until anyone else can find something better.

2. Performance, top notch. picture is worth a thousand words. so here's the tests i've done so far.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...g-mods-done-tx-4-clip-mod-18.html#post6879172
i believe the cooling ability can also surpass cryo (i cant confirm though). the abundant holes on the brused aluminum maximises airflow underneath M17X and because the cooler is raised 10 degree, hot exhaust air is directed upwards allowing cool air from sides to flow in, reducing "air recycling".

3. Fans are removable and positioned directly underneath critical parts like gpu and cpu. they are very quite as well, M17x level 1 fan (which is pretty much on most of the time) sounds louder than notepal u3's fans at max.

4. rubber grips are extremely sticky. absolutely no movement no matter how u push it. only way to move is to lift the cooler or M17x up to reposition.


Cons
1. stability. because it's only a single piece of aluminum, the sheer weight of M17x is putting a bit of strain on it. that said, M17x is perfectly stable on top of notepal u3, it's just that if you type really hard or fast, u can feel that the laptop is a bit "springy" or " shaky". this is because the middle is not supported and it's a single large sheet of thick aluminum.

2. length of cable between fans is still too short for my liking. u cant position the fans reallly edge to edge. so big deal though.

3. although it's usb powered, i would prefer to have a DC adapter included to power those fans. reason being, those fans are clearly underpowered. cant maximise potential. however, as some forumers have pointed out, 80mm fans are louder than 120mm. so it could be the reason, to keep the noise level down. but since M17x is so darn loud, i wouldnt mind the fans are a bit louder than they are now (they are really quite anyway).


Side note
notepal u3 really does absolulte wonders for cpu temp, but for gpu temp it's less obvious. i took the fans out and gpu temps rose by max 4-5C, which is less aparant compared to a whopping 10-15C drop in cpu temp, allowing further overclocking throttlestop (thanks unclewebb) headroom.

size wise, the M17x is a perfect fit for notepal u3 despite claiming support for up to 19". there's only about 0.5mm clearance on both sides when u place M17x down. the added height is about 1.5" on the back. it does take a usb port but gives the usb port back with another usb port, which is redundant because there wont be much juice left in that port anyway. fans are controlled by a slider nob, frommin to max. there's no auto/sensor control, it's all you. i set it to max full time anyway since it's so quite.

i've attached a quick idle/normal web browsing pic (while im writing this review) for you guys to look at. more pics will come later on (after i finish work). gotta go now, any questions i'll try to answer later. cheers and have a good day.

 

Thats a great review, thanks very much for taking the time to compile all the information.

I have searched all over for something with x3 120mm fans but cant seem to get one apart from the cryo, and as we know, i didnt have a good experience with the one i had.

For the money, (£25ish in the UK), i think i will probably go with the U3 mainly due to its repositionable fans which will allow direct placement under each gpu and cpu intake - in theory, should work a charm and the only downside to cooling that i can see would be the size of the fans and that they may be underpowered to a degree by usb.

The cryo, although built sollidly,i felt lacked in design in the respect that there is not enough vents for the expelled air to reach the intakes....kind of blocked by the aluminium bars and mesh underneath (although other users noted increased air flow by removing the mesh underneath the surface of the cryo).
With the cryo set to its max, It (for me anyway) would not even blow a small piece of paper off its own surface - it also sounded one heck of alot louder on max than level 1 M17x fans.

I will do a bit more research on the subject but i would say that U3 will be the cooler of choice, unless something superb comes up which is doubtful.

Thanks again for the info!

+Rep Alex.....

 

Stevie i ordered one yesterday,The cheapest i found was from link below cost £26.69 including shipping not a bad price.

Cooler Master NotePal U3 Notebook Cooler Black Fans 19.70

 

Cheers Sauce, i found one here a wee bit cheaper:

Kikatek.com | (R9-NBC-8PCK-GP) COOLERMASTER R9-NBC-8PCK-GP Coolermaster Black portable cooling pad w/3x 8cm speed control fan

Not much cheaper but a bit.....probably order one later i think.

+Rep for the advice matey.

 

Scrub that as a cheapest price......below £18 including delivery here:

Computing - Play.com (UK) - Free Delivery

Only downside is its pre-order - released on 10th Dec but Im not in a hurry and would rather save a few quid LOL

 

Nice price just cancelled my order as it was not yet dispatched .Will get from Play.Thanks Stevie +1

 

No worries mate, thanks for the Rep, I too have just ordered it from Play....dont mind the wait at that price....BARGAIN!!!!

 

I got mine from kikatek, cheapest I could find amongst those in stock and reputable online stores.

 

darn, could have saved a couple of quids. oh well, somebody has to take the plunge first.

 

Good job you did, splendid review hence me buying one.....well done sir....

 

Just checked same link (after we placed our orders Sauce) and its gone up to £25.99......good job we ordered when we did eh fella? - also, they say they now have them in stock ready for dispatch within 24hrs....looks like we will get them sooner rather than later......just hope they dont bump the price.....nice to think of that extra 8 quid saved eh?

EDIT: just checked my order on Play and its been packed and no sign of any price change.......wahaayyyyy LOLOL - also had an email from them stating that the release date has been brought forward, hence the dispatch i guess....

 

Does the U3 accomodate the R2 in storage mode? Meaning, can the R2 fit along the underside of the cooling pad for ease of transport?

 

Not sure on that one....thing is, storage mode is ok but where do you carry the fans and all the rest of it unless you have a backpack.....also, it looks like it could possibly scratch our beasts if used for carrying...i wouldnt use it for that personally....

 

Well, got the cooler yesterday and its great.

Mini review:

Although not as sturdy as the cryo in terms of rigidity whilst the M17x is on it, i find that it doesnt budge, i can have my palms on the palmrest and type without the laptop moving - from that point of view, its sturdy enough and i havent noticed andy real wobbles at all.

The rubber grips stop the laptop moving and it also stays in place on the desktop.

One of the benefits i see over the cryo is that because of all the holes in the aluminum, it allows more air to be "pushed" to the parts that need it - the cryo had quite big strips of solid aluminum which i felt were not needed and blocked airflow.

The sides and base are very open to air circulation so well designed in that respect.

The USB return is a great idea - i dont think it will power much else by using it but i have my nano receiver for my mouse plugged into it and works fine and keeps my remaining USB ports free for anything else.

It is extremely quiet even on full speed settings, can barely be made out over the system fans on low. The cryo was much louder, which i kinda expected the U3 to be loud too given that it uses 80mm fans (supposedly not as quiet)

My only real criticism is in relation to the length of the cables connecting the fans. As AlexNvidia states, they could do with being a tad longer to enable positioning of the fans to the very far left and right of the cooler.

Saying that, I have managed to do this by playing about with them - the cables are a bit taught but I have both the gpu fans positioned right on the very edges and the cpu fan kinda offset in the middle....i found that fliping the laptop over and placing the cooler upside down to get correct alignment was a good idea.

As far as results go, I have used Hwinfo32 and ran some test at idle and whilst running vantage/3dmark 06 and can honestly say that it has lowered temps considerably.

Prior to using the cooler, with laptop on the desk, i was getting max temps of around 55c but have noticed that they dont reach 50c at all now - granted this is not extreme testing using the likes of furmark but is a good indicator of its abilities.

With a bit of web browsing, my temps for cpu max were 56c mac, 49c and 32c for respective gpu's. Current temps remain quite a bit lower in the high 30c/low 40c region.

These results are on a stock / non modified system - factory condition with no retention mod or repasting.

All in all, without more intensive testing, i would say that this is a really great cooler for less than £18gbp in comparison to the cryo which cost me £60gbp and really didnt do a better job, in fact, in some cases i found it INCREASED temps rather than decrease them.

Overall - strongly recommended for our M17x beasts......

Will try and post more info / results .

 

nice review. I agree with all the comments you made. most importantly, we now have a real comparison between cryo and notepal, and from your experience, notepal wins hands down over the overhyped overpriced cryo. nice one

 

Cheers...i also forgot to note that even scores in 3dmark06 and vantage went up too - not by a huge margin, but by a couple of hundred in 3dmark06 and around 100 using vantage. Maybe because the cpu isnt stressed as much, im not sure but i certainly have noted an increase in average scores.

3dmark06 was averaging around 16200 but now averages about 16400

vantage was averaging around P13850 and is now averaging P14000

Must say, im extremely happy with this cooler, the cryo that i had NEVER provided me with such results.

Looking back, i think i was swayed by everyone saying that "cryo is king" as all the fans were ideally located (which i guess they are) but other factors such as the solid aluminum bars across the fans detracted from ability.

Because the U3 is literally full of holes and the smaller fans can be placed DIRECTLY under each component, i think it results in an overall better performance than the cryo.

That was my personal experience of the two.

Even though the cryo had bigger fans, it was very hard pushed to "blow" a small scrap of paper off its surface, even at full tilt. I think the air was going somewhere else except where it needed to go LOL.

Anyway, i would be interested to hear of any results with the U3 using furmark as a bench to record temps. I havent got it on this system and have read some info on it being somewhat too stressful on our systems. Dunno if thats true but if anyone "seasoned" out there would like to comment, i could download it and run it for a bit and post back results if anyone is interested.

Again, if anyone with a U3 has furmark and wants to post their temp results, that would also be great.

 

if you follow the link on my mini review, i've posted a bunch of benchmark screen caps, including one with furmark. overall, i still cant get U3 to perform miracles with gpu temp. tried several methods now all with the same result, only 3-5C temp drop. try it stevie, maybe u can come up with a better solution.

 

Just a trial post....please ignore.

 

I actually have a U3, I love it. It allows you to put the fans anywhere you want, it props it up a good amount and it is lightweight and portable. I'd def suggest it. I went with it over the SF-19, and sorta glad I did.