Custom Built Laptop Cooler

I am going to make a laptop cooler most likely out of wood. I bought a few 120mm fans because I heard they were the quietest and plan on building this week. A few questions I have about this little project... Will it matter if the fan is touching the laptop directly or should there be a little bit of clearance between the two? What direction should the air be blowing, onto the laptop or pushing the hot air down and out? How much room should I leave between the bottom of the fan and my desk (I was thinking like an inch)?

Hopefully when i'm done i'll upload some pics of the final product. If anyone has a custom laptop cooler of their own, I'd love to see what ideas people have! Thanks!

 

If the fans on the bottom of your laptop are intake fans (most likely) then the cooler should blow into them. If, for some reason, they're exhaust fans, then the fans should pull away from them.
It doesn't really matter if the fans are touching, but if you make the fans level with the wood surface, then rest the laptop on that, the clearance given by the laptop would be ideal.

 

would be best if you tell us your laptop brand /model so we can find out if they need to push air or pull it

 

I just bought the new Asus G51vx-Rx05. It seems like it has a pretty big exhaust on the left side but there is also a 2" mesh grate on the bottom which could be for intake although I am not sure...

 

That's most likely the intake for the exhaust on the side. You'll want to double check - you can easily do that by putting the laptop on its side and hanging a thead in front of the fan - if it doesn't blow the thread, it's intake. Assuming it it, blow into that.

 

I've made a custom cooler once from wine box wood, a sheet of aluminium, an old desktop cooling fan and a mobile phone charger.
The wood is soft and easy to cut and sand.
The layer of aluminium was as big as my notebook's surface dimensions and very thin.
I've cut holes in the sheet, exactly matching the intakes on the notebook bottom surface so air was directly blown into the air intakes.
Residual airflow kept the aluminium sheet cool which functioned as a heat sink for the rest of the notebook's bottom.

I haven't got any pictures anymore, it looked a tad medieval (or 'worthy-of-McGyver' as some NBR member put it), cooling 10 degrees Celsius though under heavy load/continuous gaming.
It's worth a try, it only took about 3/4 hours to build.

 

Today I went out and bought the wood and finished making the wooden box. After I made the whole thing, the top was warped and now wobbles a bit. I sanded it after a multitude of curse words so it was straighter but if your reading this and plan on making a wooden one, make sure you get a VERY straight piece for top and sides. It was very very annoying. Even though it isn't perfectly flat now, i'm sure I can have adjustable legs or something else neat.

 

I nearly tickled myself when you said a multitude of curse words

 

It's been finished for awhile now but I just haven't been on i suppose. Hopefully I'll upload some pics if I can figure out how. It looks nice although not very much air flow. Maybe it's the voltage/amps or maybe the 3 fans... who knows

 

you should notice that 2 inch thing isn't a fan or intake or speaker or...
it's nothing(it is blocked by sth)
if you are looking for the intakes,they are spreaded all over the bottom(for example one for vga, one for hdd and son on)
look at this picture of g50 originally by cluchx2(g50-x5 review):

 

so if you wanna place your fans wisely place them on these holes.

 

Yeah I did that. I took off the back and found out pretty quickly the HUGE circle on the bottom was useless. I used 3 fans, one unerneath the CPU, one underneath the GPU and one underneath the HDD... For kicks and giggles. It's not ALOT of airflow, probably because of the power adapter I am using. It goes to a digital picture frame... it is 12V but I think the amps are off. It is very very quiet and looks sweet!

 

The Front and Back with fans on. All Painted white with black "republic of gamers" logo.

 

I also drilled holes in the front and sides and the blue light shines through the holes. It was totally worth all the frustration! Let the compliments and "wow's" commence!

 

very very nice

 

Thanks for posting your final results, looks awesome!

 

Fantastic.. Great.... Bad ..... any and all other words that would describe the look of the kooler...

I hope it works just as good as it looks..

Be well, JW

 

Wow, that things gonna freeze your laptop . Great job.

 

Does anyone else see swastikas in the way they light up?

The company that built your fans is Nazis!

 

we do but just didn't care to comment about it because <strike>had better things to do with our time </strike>

we already knew