Cooling pad VS flipping laptop

Hello guys, I'm about to go buy a new monitor because I can't stand gaming on a 15.6" anymore and it's on sale. Anyway, as for the question, is it better to leave the laptop on a cooling pad or flipped the laptop vent-sides up without a cooling pad? I'm asking this because my brother wants my cooling pad for his laptop.

Thanks in advance.

 

While I'm sure the cooling pad would be optimal, I would give it to your brother if he needed/wanted to use it while you did not need it.

If you are curious as to which is better, try a temperature monitoring tool such as this one. Play a game or something for a full day with the cooling pad and write down temps; then do it again on its side without the pad. Let us know if you see a difference.

 

Problem is that on most laptops the lid needs to be opened to draw air from top through the keyboard. I didn't believe it, but my temps are in mid to upper 70's maxed with lid opened, and 90's with lid closed. Just something to consider.

 

Is that on your Sager or all 3? My Acer works fine with the lid closed and almost no temperature difference. Can't really say for my Asus since nothing supports it yet and the MSI is intolerable with my monitor so I never bothered using it long enough to tell.

As for the OP's question. Keep in mind that if you pick a higher resolution monitor, then you're going to get a higher average temperature. My 4670 memory clock tends to stay higher even when I'm not gaming or anything from the higher resolution and has a higher load temperature going from mid 80s to low 90s. If your system stays relatively cool regardless, then you might not need a cooling pad but it is nice to keep it as cool as possible.

 

I guess it depends on the CPU and GPU. the ATI 4670 won't stress to nearly as high temperatures as a high end GPU like the 485m, and not all laptops draw air through the keyboard, but most do. In any case, as long as your temps are within spec I wouldn't worry about too much.

 

Ah, no worries, I haven't seen my card go above 62C. XD I'm only asking this because my CPU can't game for a prolonged time without a pad, or rather, I'd like to keep this laptop as long as possible and I hate temps above 85C(comes from gaming on a desktop with good cooling....).

Yea, I looked up your laptop and saw that your laptop has a removable part above the keyboard which looks like it draws in air from. Mine doesn't though so, I think I'll be fine about the airflow as far as the air from the keyboard is concern.


Anyway, thanks for the replies. I guess I'll just try what Fir3Chi3f says, since no one seems to have a definite answer in this thread or my searches.

 

Just keep in mind that if you have the lid closed, the screen itself may be exposed to higher temperatures that could damage it over time, even if the internal components are within spec.

 

Lol with a name like "Syberia" one would think that you know a lot about cooling

Mr. Mysterious

 

It was an accidental misspelling that happened when I was about 10 or so, and it has been my username ever since.

 

I can confrim this. I removed the whole plastic back of my keyboard and it dropped my tempratures with a few 5Cs. And everytime I close the lid for overnight download or anything, my laptop usually gets very hot. In my case, I have a own powerplan so I just swith over and my screen turns of within 1 min