Does a cooling pad affect laptop performance?

More specifically, does it affect the performance when it is not using the cooling pad? I ask this simply because I've been reading threads here where laptop performance would stutter because of heat issues and I recently just started to use a cooling pad with my m11x and when I dont have the cooling pad with me (Either bringing it out or on the desk), the laptop's performance had went down. Im just asking this to diagnose some performance issues Ive been having recently and Im just trying to find the cause. It just seems plausible that because I've suddenly started using a cooler, the temps of the laptop and CPU usage is becoming confused as temp's are always changing. Any opinions? I just bought a cooler anyways as having something on top of my lap that keeps the m11x from burning me, so if it may be a cause I might as well just not plug the cooling pad in and just use it as a stand.

 

If throttling is occurring then a cooling pad might help with that. In order to better determine what's going on with your system you'll want to use Throttlestop in order to log temps and CPU utilization as well as GPU-Z to log the GPU's stats.

 

I usually use a cooling pad and game with a 32" LED LCD tv and temps on L4D2 on high settings usually stay at 65. I gamed at my friends house with out elevating my M11x and I overheated, driver shut down GPU. I wasn't tracking my temps but the back and bottom of the computer were hot as balls.