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I have a DELL M4400 precision laptop and it heats up pretty quickly when I watch YouTube videos (or any videos online for that matter). In order to reduce the heat, I made the laptop sit over a laptop stand with fan. That did not help much in reducing the heat.
As a next step, I'm using a table fan (for myself and) for the laptop for better cooling. It does the job, but, I'm unsure it this is a right way of doing things to cool down.

Table fan
Table fan image

For example, fans that fit in the vent of the laptop employ suction to pull air out of the system (induced cooling) to enable cooling. However, in my case, I'm forcing air against the vent of the laptop. This (forced cooling) is against the direction of the air coming out of the laptop.

Question:

  1. Can this cause heat to spread within the laptop and cause harm?
  2. Would it be a better idea if I kept the table fan on the other side of the laptop and let air swipe in the direction as the vent air from the laptop?
  3. Is there any other way to use the same table fan and laptop stand to enable better cooling?
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  • Have you tried cleaning your laptop fan?
    – Nordlys Jeger
    Aug 20, 2018 at 15:53
  • Yes, I clean it every 3 months
    – Prasanna
    Aug 21, 2018 at 4:57

1 Answer 1

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Any air movement is better than no air movement. However, forcing air against the air coming out of the laptop is not going to help (and may actually hurt) your laptop. Many laptops draw cool air from under the laptop and eject it from the side. If you force air against this, the laptop cannot expel the hot air and will only get hotter.

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However, if you are concerned about cooling, they make many different laptop stands that push air against the underside of the laptop and into the intake vent to help cool the laptop. Most of these are powered off the USB of your laptop.

In most cases, as long as the underside of the laptop is unobstructed (set on a bed, pillow, etc), the laptop will cool itself just fine.

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  • Through experience, I have found that this solution alone is not enough to cool my laptop - enough. That is the reason why I started thinking of additional cooling methods. Do you think that will it help, if I placed the fan on the other side of the laptop, so as the reduce the air pressure on the vent side and increase air flow?
    – Prasanna
    Aug 20, 2018 at 15:04
  • Like I said, any air flow is better than none. If you put the fan so it is assisting the laptop fan, it will cool better. Also, ensuring the laptop fan and heatsink are free from dust will help with cooling as well.
    – Justin Pearce
    Aug 20, 2018 at 15:15

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