Laptop Coolers

[duckfan78]

Can anyone give me information on laptop coolers. My laptop works fine, but when I use it for a while, it gets really hot and starts to work very slowly. I know they have laptop coolers but wanted to know if anyone has used one and liked how it works

also what brands are good and which types are good.

thanks

 

[Regina]

What a coincidence, I just purchased one yesterday at Staples.

My laptop does run hot from time to time. You can hear when the fans are running at an increased speed. A few months ago, it simply wouldn't start. I brought it in for repair and they found that the fans needed a good cleaning. (It was 2 years old, so it took awhile to reach this point.)

A couple of weeks ago, it started acting up again. It would freeze, go black and reboot. Back it went in for repairs and this time I was on the verge of losing my hard drive.

My boss has the same laptop and he recommended I get a cooling pad to help with the heat problem it has. When I asked the repair tech about this, he said that he does see units that need to be fixed because the port can't handle the power needed to run the fans in the pad.

Knowing that, I picked the Targus cooling pad that has an alternate A/C power cord. The kid in the store told me that it still needed to be connected to a computer port. I didn't think he was right, and sure enough, it runs independent of my computer.

So far so good. Just a low hum that I need to get used to.

 

[ktglads]

With my old Dell, I had to have one running since it quite ofter ran hot. I had one that plugged into the USB port of your computer, but that ended up breaking. I finally just went with a stand that would elevate the laptop so the base (where the fans are) would not be sitting directly on the surface. This helped immensely. Also, cleaning out your fans helps too. A trick I learned was to turn off the computer, put a pillowcase over the fan and use the vacuum to clean it. Works great!

 

[Sleepy]

We have a laptop cooler by a company named Antec. It is a very good cooler and has 2 speeds. My laptop never gets hot.

 

[Regina]

ktglads, I always use an elevated base, but my computer still had heat issues.

I'm optimistic that the base, combined with the cooling pad, will do the trick.