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Not your average question here I know but thought it would be fun to get some points of view... I'm on a tight schedule and my laptop keeps turning off because it's overheating due to the crazy heat in the UK at the moment... So I'm looking for a DIY (Its 2am here) way of keeping laptop cool.. I won't down vote no matter how bizarre , wacky , tips, suggestions innovative , lame whatever.. Brainstorming exercise... | |||||||||||||||
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Open the case and clean the dust out of your heatsinks. Seriously, whenever you have heat problems, dustbusting should be one of the first things you do. | |||
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You can try to use a cooling pad. See this SU post for example.
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If you must work and don't need the eye candy, try disablid aero and other graphic enhancements. Also, other hw resource intensive software could keep your HD or CD spinning all the time. Games should be out of the questions, as they stress all components. | |||
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Prop your laptop up on a few books or something to provide airflow underneath the computer. Get a fan blowing in there. If you're felling corageous, put some ice and water on your computer in tripple-bagged ziplock plastic bags. | |||
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My wife used one of those therapeutic ice packs they sell at the pharmacy (she says it works like a charm...) I personally used to use a USB-powered laptop cooler when I used to have a PC laptop. Now I have a macbook pro, for some reason it rarely gets that hot (maybe I'm not working hard enough...!) | |||
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Assuming that you don't need the full calculation power of your laptop, install a program like Notebook Hardware Control (normally dedicated to save battery, but can be used in this case to reduce heat). Then, use it to:
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I live in Singapore where it's regularly 33 Celsius (92 Fahrenheit), so we do know a thing or two about cooling your notebook. Since the common ways have been stated here, I am going to state a real hacker's way of cooling your notebook - the good ol' thermal compound swap. WARNING: Not for the faint-hearted. Heat is transferred from your notebook components out of the notebook through the fan(s) and heatsink design, and the it is in your favor to ensure that the heat is transferred from your components such as the CPU/GPU to the heatsink as fast and as efficiently as possible. Usually notebook thermal compounds are good, but there are after-market compounds that are BETTER, sometimes MUCH BETTER. I do this to all my notebooks - open up the notebook, separate the heatsink assembly, clean up all the old thermal compound junk with an alcohol swab. Then go get some Artic Silver 5 (one of the best thermal compounds out there) pictured below, and apply. Reassemble the heatsink assembly and your notebook.
On average, you can see a 3 degrees celcius drop in your operating temperature. If you are even more gung-ho, swap out the notebook fan with a silent, more powerful after-market alternative. Also, at times when my notebook is still warm, I actually drill small holes into the casing after studying the airflow. I have only done this on ONE occasion though, and it's because it was simply running too hot - managed to drop it by another 2 celsius. P.S Please be sure you know what you are doing before trying this - not responsible for a bricked notebook. | ||||
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hehe... Want some wacky? Here's a little DIY cooling you can do if your laptop has fans on the bottom. If they're not on the bottom, you can probably skip the box and use the same concept of taping some kind of tube or bag to the air intake directly and find a way to pump air to it. build a flat cardboard box (with enough space for some air to travel, a couple cm's should do). Seal one end with tape. cut out holes on top of the cardboard box to line up with the air intakes on the bottom of the laptop. Pad the holes with electrical tape and make them stand out so when you put your laptop on the box, the holes are flush with it and make some kind of seal. The next step is to get a garbage bag. Cut out the bottom then tape one end to the fan and the other to the open side of your flat box. The air will go straight from the fan into the box and will get forced into your laptop's intake. I did this a long time ago on a toshiba laptop which had pretty clogged up heatsink near the air outlet. I didn't feel like taking the whole thing apart but wanted to play games but the darn thing would only run a couple minutes before shutting down because it was overheating. It worked... | |||
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Also, be mindful of the room temperature. If this is high then the laptop is going to be high too. | |||
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My laptop is pretty stationary, so I took two old CD drives with the screws still in them, took some cord used for tying glasses, wrapped it around the bottom of the LCD and tied it to the screws. Why? Because I'm not going to buy a cooling pad for a laptop thats about to die permanently on me. | |||
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