Poll: Do Laptop Cooling Pad's work?

[zehydra]

Hello, all.
I recently got Battlefield 2: Bad Company for PC and apparently its so graphics intensive that it causes my computer to overheat. Most of the time when I'm playing it, the overheating simply causes a drop in the fps rate and nothing more, however the last time I played, the hard drive shut off because of the heat. I did some research, and I got myself SpeedFan (this program that is supposedly telling me my temperature for my processors and Graphics card), and it has told me that my processors are currently (the game is not currently running) 50 degrees celsius and my Graphics Card is 55 degrees celsius. In game the graphics card reaches 71 Celsius. Since this game happens to be quite awesome I've turned my eye to laptop cooling pads. I've seen some great views and some really bad reviews of these things.

My question for the Escapist is, have you ever used one, and did it work for you?

 

[Xrysthos]

Never tried the ones with fans underneath, but I find that anything that adds some air between my laptop and my desk makes a big difference. I have 4 rubber things that I stick underneath mine - keeps the laptop in place and helps with the cooling. So I guess the ones with fans would be better.

I do feel your pain though. Had to wrap those frozen packs you put in coolers in towels and put them under my old laptop in order to play World of Warcraft. That did the trick, but changing them during raids and stuff was a ***** >.<

 

[razormint21]

In my case, no. I just place my laptop on a raised platform, like a four sided frame with a hollow center.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

They can help quite a bit. I had one that made a hollow space and had a fan, it cooled my laptop enough to game even with a broken internal fan.

 

[NeutralDrow]

I have one, and it works very well, yes.

 

[crudus]

First of all it is probably a bad idea to be using a laptop for games like that.

Second, I have heard those cooling pads work. One of my friends use to just use a bag of ice and set his laptop on that to play games.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I have a Coolermaster with two positionable fans and it works very well. On top of that, it is angled and thus gives me a better working/playing angle for my laptop. Totally worth the money.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Try turning down your graphics settings. There's no reason it should be overheating, laptops are meant to take a lot of heat. What kind of computer do you have anyways?

Those things don't work correctly. Your computer is designed with airflow and cooling in mind. Those blowers just fuck it all up.

 

[radarbsm]

Yes, they do make a difference. If I do not have the cooling pad on my laptop can top out at +90 degrees C. Then it slows down and then shuts off. Oh, a good tip I can give you is get the ones with the usb cord attached to the pad. Do not buy the ones with the cord that is removable ones.

 

[Metal Brother]

I used to use a Dell Inspiron 9400 and the cooling fan died. It was old enough that I didn't want to invest in repairs, but I still used it quite a bit.

Without the cooling pad the machine would shut down after an hour or two of use. With the pad, I was able to use it comfortably for however long i needed. I had one of the models that included a USB-powered fan inside, FWIW...

 

[The Root Beer Guy]

In my experience, they work very well. Mine lifts my laptop off of the desk at an angle, so I don't even need to use the fans that often.

 

[Eponet]

I put mine on bottlecap struts. That's usually sufficient to disipate the heat enough for me to play DA:O or Oblivion.

 

[scrambledeggs]

No, it's a corporate conspiracy.

 

[Metzeten]

I did consider buying one, then I found that one of my uni text books positioned so that the back of the laptop rests on that to create and angled space underneath works fine.

 

[Dys]

My laptop doesn't really overheat, so I've no cause for using them. I'd imagine that they don't do anymore than raising your laptop so that there's airflow underneath, also, things shouldn't be crashing until you're well over 100 degrees (if my desktop is anything to go off of).

 

[nutgear]

yes and no. most common issue with heat on laptop is poor air circulation if you cant get air to flow all over the computer then yes a cooling pad helps to keep others part cooler.. as for cooling the CPU and GPU cooling pads don't help much.. Your heatsink can be clog and a cooling pad wont help because air flow is really limited (clean lint or whatever maybe stop air would be a better solution).. as mention above raising the system can increase airflow which can be just as effective as a cooling pad depending on the fan on the system

 

[Dedtoo]

I just place my laptop on a couple of old movies under there.
Works for me.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

I've got one - it works. My Compaq has horrible natural airflow, so the extra help makes a noticeable difference.

One thing you gotta pay attention to is how much air it actually moves. The first one I bought had really weak fans and hardly did anything at all. When it broke I got a more expensive one with more powerful fans, and it works great.

 

[Shru1kan]

First of all it is probably a bad idea to be using a laptop for games like that.

If you have the specs... (I doubt the OP does)


And yeah, mine works nicely. Loud little bugger though.