what are you guys using for laptop coolers these days??

zalman and nzxt coolers where it's at still? i bought a coolmaster u2 but that was a piece of junk. loud fans, one had a bad bearing out the gate but the other fan was the one that pooped on me not long after i bought it. good concept but poor execution and quality. any other good competition?

 

I dont use laptop coolers. If a laptop requires an external cooler to be used comfortably while gaming i would rethink my purchase decision.

 

not interested in it because it's required but because it helps longevity. and i won't be gaming much but still pegging my cpu and gpu.

 

I've used the U2/3 more as elevated stands than with the attached fans, you get more of an effect by raising a laptop off the surface than you do by forcing air into the vents.

 

BlueLounge Cool Feet. Quite possibly the cheapest and most effective way of cooling. Unless you have fans at the bottom, there will be little to none advantage of a cooler.

 

I don't use coolers. If my laptop starts getting hot, I prop it up with something to get airflow under it.

 

took a slab of some 1/2" thick oak, then a dremel and engraved air flow grooves and drilled holes, works pretty well..

 

U3 works pretty well with or without the fans. Temps are about 1-2C lower with fans, but I suspect it's more because a forced-induction effect than the fans doing any cooling themselves.

 

I don't use coolers, I always buy laptops that can handle their own heat output without one and I always keep my heatsink and fans clean too!

 

None. I replace the thermal paste and undervolt to keep temps low.

 

If you want the absolute lowest temps possible then there is no substitute for CoolLaboratory Liquid Ultra. It is hands down THE single best thermal paste bar none.

 

Never used one. As others have said, if you have to use one the laptop wasn't designed and/or tested properly. It really is that simple.

 

This.

And my luck with CM have been pretty good. Although my latest one is not totally silent, my environment has to be pretty quiet (rare) for you to hear the very faint hum the fan produces. My latest Cool Master has the 4 stage adjustable stand that I love. But the 4 USBs are a joke.

 

Cooler master ergostand II

Not that my laptop needs it, I needed to replace a usb1 hub and thought why not get two birds with one stone? This stand has a USB hub included.
DO NOT BUY! This fan is so loud I can hear it through all my house, and I don't live in what is considered a small or badly isolated house. It doesn't help that the fan doesn't sound like a normal fan. It produces a constant "brown note". And it's a bit too expensive to use as a USB2.0-hub-stand thing too. CM really dropped the ball on this one.

~Aeny

 

Combination of what's been said:
- repaste: user repaste by hand with some TLC is much better than what any factory install can provide
- prop: pretty much every laptop can benefit from this, just a couple bottle caps, or cheap "cool balls" type device attached with velcro to prop it up
- undervolt: while with GPU's everyone tries to push the limits, I still find the best thermal balance with undervolt, overclocking or underclocking. CPU definitely undervolt and usually underclock even.

I've found coolers have limited effect on cooling the components unless there is a direct line of airflow to the CPU or GPU heatsink itself. Blowing air on a plastic cover doesn't do much.

 

is intel allowing undervolt on cores now? specifically sandy bridge? haven't messed with undervolt for awhile. i haven't even looked for my gpu. i hit mid 70's, high 70's sustained, and low 80's with turbo boost on. nothing to worry about but cooler is always better. had to re up on my thermal pastes and articlean all more than 5 years old. got some noctua nt-h1 on the way i am gonna try.

 

You can under volt Haswell

Beamed from my G2 Tricorder

 

Dont know if I am getting a laptop anytime soon. Maxwell seems to be very much worth waiting for. And I'd rather have it at 20nm. The only laptop that has maxwell 860m and I hate the design, the color and I was seriously thinking about an 870m this go around.

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

if it needs a cooler you are in a very hot climate or it's poorly designed.

 

Not necessarily. Some people just like keeping their technology as cool as possible. It helps with longevity and sometimes speed and energy costs.

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

I took my bottom cover off that way the cooler actually was cooling the components. that's ghetto though, what one can do is get a hole saw and modders mesh and jb weld. this way you have a laptop with a bottom cover AND the cooler pad can feed cool air in to the laptop.

 

And that's not ghetto? Same, same if you ask me.And there's no selling it after that alteration.

 

Excessive much?

 

^I can relate. If I'm overclocking and overvolting my GPUs, then the bottom cover needs to be off in order to keep temps under control.

 

I've never really understood this; you have much more freedom with a desktop to do this with, and you'd have much more of a benefit. If you need 100% portability and can't wait to get home and play games then sure. But I seriously doubt you take the bottom cover off and then go to a park and play Bioshock Infinite.

 

You never know.

Seriously though, one key advantage of a laptop is that it's much more compact. Also keep in mind that we may still need mobility even though we do crazy things with our laptops while seated. Yes we could get a desktop and a laptop, but a lot of people prefer an all-in-one mobile solution.

 

ghetto my !!!!

not at all, a cooling pad is pointless if the cool air it's blowing on to the bottom of the laptop is bouncing off the plastic case. other wise your rather wasting your time and money,

 

...but that's why I said cooling pads are usually more effective by just raising the notebook off the flat surface, once you start doing all of that, you're on your own/

 

I use Thermaltake T1000 when stationary, nothing when mobile.

+100500.

 

I don't use CPU coolers like those stands. What I do use is some rubber feet that came with a rackmount firewall I installed at a customer location. The are about 3/8th's of an inch thick and my temps dropped around 4-6 degrees celcius. Free and effective.

@ cdoublejj - What did you use to cut such an irregular shaped circle? A hole saw for a drill motor is about $15 from home depot and will cut a nice looking circle. That being said, are you seeing reduced temps as a result of your mod?

 

What would it take to buy a simple stand, or buying one of those cooler master Ux models and wiring up my own noctua fans?

Sent from my SM-N9005

 

a basic understanding of electronics/wiring and maybe soldering.

 

btw guys is it normal that my cpu temperature raised 7-8C in last month..i dont game too much and i first thought it cause of the new driver 337.50 from nvidia.The outside temperature also went 5-6C up.Could this be te reason why my cpu in games that i usually month ago 82-85C..now i got 90-92C.Mine notebook isnt too old..i have it for 6months.I just hope that the termal paste isnt gone

 

The ambient temperature rise explains at least some of the difference. You could also try cleaning your vents in case dust has built up over the past six months.


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Possibly the driver. You're hitting threshold. Well, IMO, you're past the threshold. I would try cleaning out vents as mentioned and probably get some paste on order and redo your paste. Factory paste jobs are crap. First thing I do when I get a new laptop is repaste. Well, after benching some to get an idea if it improved or something is amiss.

Sent from my XT1053 using HoFo app.

 

I grew up liquid cooling/chilling desktops, pushing them to their limits. For years I'd always get nervous of running higher then 45c load temps, even though I was still well on the safe side!

That said, when I got my first decent laptop, Dell Precision M6300, that thing spit hot fire! I was gaming on it, and the bottom was on fire. I saw a decent drop in temps from as5 thermal paste, and another 10c at full load from running a cheap logitech laptop cooler!

I know cooling pads won't help all model laptops, but in certain cases, they do help. I always ran mine velcrowed to the bottom, as I spend a lot of time sitting on the couch gaming.

My Lenovo T420 I have now though, runs a hell of a lot hotter CPU temp then anything I've had before, but the case of it doesn't get hot. So I know that a cooling pad isn't going to help. Me shoving a I7 into it wasn't probably the brightest idea! Going to find out how tough these Lenovo's really are

 

Still using my Cooler Master Notepal U3 and am very happy with it.