Laptop Coolers?

[Peder_dingo]

Hi I previously opened the thread below because when gaming for just 1-2 hours in an game with fairly high system demands i recorded CPU temperatures of 90+ degrees and GPU of 80+ degrees which I think is very warm and I am sure will suck the life out of the laptop pretty fast. So I figure there might be some way to work around this issue: A cooling pad. Does anyone have any experience with them? Do they actually work - and to what extent? I've looked at the "Targus Lap Chill Mat" because - as the name says - it was designed with the lap in mind, but I don't know if it does the job?

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/70675-20-geforce-540m-temperatures-gaming

 

[AntiZig]

Hello,

yes 80+ is too hot for sure.

steps to keep it down:
1. lower screen brightness
2. blow out all the dust
3. make sure fans are working
4. make sure ambient temperature is not 30C
5. get a laptop cooler

now the targus lap chill mat, I like the fact that there's literally empty space, that is very nice for air circulation. I can't tell what kind of fan they are using there or what kind of opening. It could be pretty good, although could be noisy as well.

The best design I've seen so far is this one: Antec Classic

Regardless of cooler model don't expect it to do miracles. Laptop coolers only provide supplemental air circulation, but if the cooling system itself isn't sufficient, laptop cooler will only help with slowing down the heat buildup, not solve it. For most applications you will see something about 5-10 degree drop in temperatures at best if any at all.

Again, if your laptop cooling system cannot cope with heat dissipation laptop cooler will only slow the process down. So basically if before you got to 80+ in 30 mins of operating under load, then with laptop cooler you might get there in 1 hr. But you will still hit those temperature peaks. Unless of course it's border line and 5-10 degrees will make a difference of being able to run things or having to deal with BSOD/system shutdown due to heat.

if you are using your computer for gaming or other full screen applications look to reduce load:
1. lower the resolution
2. turn off AA/AF or any other post processing
3. lower graphics detail
4. check your GPU settings and turn off scaling (I know nVidia has this issue where it automatically scales to native resolution, when the output resolution is lower, that puts additional strain on GPU to scale the output)

 

[Peder_dingo]

Brightness is already lowered to one notch above minimum - I prefer soft light for gaming anyways. No dust in it its less than 2 weeks old. Fans blow air and one underneath sucks it in - they seem to be working perfectly fine and they rev up when gaming but the temperature is obviously way too high, so who knows? Low ambient temps - I'm in Scandinavia where what we call summer is considered winter-like in warmer regions:-( And I am definitely getting the targus cooler no matter what - I saw reviews of it, and it was super quiet, and it accomodates for "lap use" which is something not built into most designs.

The resolution is already fairly low because the lcd panel is cheap. its 1366x768 or something along those lines. The funny thing is that when gaming I do super good framerates on the settings I use. Nothing seems to be stressing it too much, save for the temperatures I can read in the logs afterwards. I know if I keep going like this the hardware will wear out fast even though my framerates remain high. I use the Nvidia feature where it switches to the Intel HD chip when taking care of everything windows-related (and because of that I dont get the full Win7 Aqua settings for instance - which I dont really care about anyways) and the geforce to only kick in when needed, ie the games I designate for it and for hd video. I still get idle temperatures in the 47-55 range. 51 degrees right now, and all I got going is Real Temp and this window in Chrome.

I talked to Acer and I have made a thread here I would like you to take a look at - I am really at a loss when it comes to what to do, I got a few options and I could really need some advice. And also I am on a tight deadline if I want to return anything.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/70705-20-expect-manufacturer