Best notebook cooler?

Which notebook coolers work the best and look the best? Im big on appearances so the ones from thermaltake with the glowing blue fan and red vents look nice. Any other suggestions? thanks in advance!

 

Have you checked out CryoLX?

 

Belkin's Cooler, Zalman NC2000, and the NZXT Cryo LX should do well with the m15x. Note that fan placement and room temperature matter greatly.

 

thanks guys! i will probably go with the cryo as it looks impressive and has a large fan!

 

dont be mislead by size.
A very small fan can outperform the three larger 120mm fans on the cryo, if positioned properly
For real power, you would want to make one yourself.
The positioning of the fan is important. You really need about 3-4 inches of airspace for the fan to breathe properly. This means the cooler needs to be lifted up a good deal. If this does not happen, the fan becomes basically a waste of energy. The fan will not get the air it needs, and the system will only be cooled by a few degrees.
If you have a large amount of airspace between the cooler and the desk, the restrictiions are removed, and the fan is more efficient at cooling your system.
I have 3 176mm Ebm Papst turbofans pushing over 1000cfm of air volume at my laptop, and I am please to say that even on very low, when the fans are revolving at about 1400rpm, and outputting about 200cfm each, my system never goes more than 10-15F above room temperature, even at full cpu load.

I have seen the cryo and zalman 1000 and 2000 coolers and i would say that the fans on the zalman output maybe about 22cfm, and the cryo maybe outputs 35cfm when the fan gets air, when the cooler is placed on the desk, the zalman puts out about 8cfm of air and the cryo has about 14cfm output. With the laptop sitting on the cooler, airflow is reduced to about 1-4 cfm for each cooler. This is because of their poor design. It may be enought to cool your rig, but its very inefficient. And these are said to be the best coolers, haha.

Putting my laptop over my three cooling fans reduces total cfm output at 48V from 1280cfm to 1050cfm. On low, the total airflow is 630cfm without the laptop and with the laptop installed air volume decreases to 510cfm. Mine has no air restiction on the intake, since the cooler is built into my desk.
Building one yourself with real fans is definitely the way to go.

K-TRON

 

dang, that sounds like a good idea! Sadly, with aesthetic being my primary concern (hey, its siting on my desk next to my alienware desktop overlooking my dock with a 120,000 wakeboarding boat tricked out in chrome, i like my looks!) i need something not homemade. Preferably with lots of lights, chrome, whatever, cost is not really an object. I will take any advice on positioning!

 

I like to sit mine on the AC vent, but this will not work over the winter. do they make coolers that have AC? I wouldn't mind having to plug it into the wall.

We should have a friendly contest to see who can get the lowest temps.
I want to make a homemade one that cools it, not just blowing more air into it.

 

How would one make their own? Unless you had the know how and materials, making your own may not be the best option.

 

arcade. you seem to have money to burn (which is a good thing!), and you already have an AW desktop. so.. my question is.. why did you trade for your new m15x that will have NO warranty instead of just buying one with a warranty?

 

actually making your own is easy.
if you can find a flat piece of metal, you can bend the metal to make an angulated form, and than cut holes to install your own fans. (obviously measure the fan location, so that the fan lines up with your laptops vents), and than wire them to a 12volt power supply, and your done.
Or you can do things the beautiful way.
You can design a cad file of the cooler and have it laser cut out of some 1/8" stainless steel. Than you can have a beautiful cooler which is precision cut.
(I am in the process of doing this now, and I will share pictures when I am finished. I just need to wait for the architecture school to properly hook up the new laser cutter)

K-TRON

 

ah, for you see money has relative value. If i can get a faster laptop for free, so much the better . As for warranty i got 3 years, the guy just changed the address and # alienware has on file so now i got support for 3 years and then i can extend again if i wish

 

nope, can't extend past 3 years to my knowledge.

 

Really? so after 3 years alienware figures chance of failure is too high or something? So no support whatsoever after that?

 

i don't think so. well maybe minor stuff, but probably not major repairs or anything.

 

Ouch, better start looking for my next notebook