Many who have a laptop, especially a gaming laptop, have a problem with overheating and
thinking about buying a cooling pad. Welcome to HowFixit, in this video,
I'm going to explain in which cases a cooling pad can be effective. And also, I'll test the
vacuum fan for cooling efficiency. I recommend watching this video; at the end, I will give you
some advice - on what to do if even the cooling pad doesn't solve the laptop overheating problem.
Before buying a cooling pad, ensure your laptop is not overheating due to dust-clogging of the
cooling system. In 90% of cases, laptop overheating is caused by dust; if you
have never cleaned your laptop or changed the thermal paste, this is probably why your laptop
overheats. There are many video instructions on the HowFixit channel, using which you can
clean your laptop and, if overheating remains after cleaning, then go to the cooling pad.
First, check if the cooling pad will be effective when paired with your laptop. As an example,
I took several laptops from different manufacturers to demonstrate in which
cases a cooling pad will give real results in dropping temperatures.
Turn the laptop over and check the air vents on the bottom cover of your laptop case. For example,
my laptop has a ventilation grill on the bottom cover. I'm just removing the cover,
and now you can see that there is direct access for blowing through
this grille. Also, there is access to the heat-conducting pipes of the laptop cooling
system, but unfortunately, the bottom cover blocks direct access for blowing to these heat pipes. In
this case, we can conclude that a cooling pad can be effective when
paired with this gaming laptop - and now, we check it out.
Let's start the test cooling pad on the Dell G5 Gaming Laptop with Core i7-8750H CPU and GeForce
GTX 1050Ti GPU. I will use the AIDA64 program in the stress test mode for at least 15 minutes.
The first 15-minute test, just a laptop without a cooling pad, shows a temperature of 73-76°C.
The second 15-minute test is already carried out with a cooling pad, and I get 68-73°C.
And for the experiment, I removed the bottom cover for a third 15-minute test
with a cooling pad; now, the cooling pad blows air directly
onto the heat-conducting tubes - as a result, we get 67-72°C.
I averaged the temperature and got the following test results:
1) no cooling pad temperature 75 °C 2) with cooling pad 70 °C
3) with cooling pad and without bottom cover 69 °C
As a result, minus 6 °C.
Okay, let's begin testing the cooling pad on other laptops.
Next cooling pad test on the MSI GE62 gaming laptop with a Core i7-6700HQ CPU and GeForce
GTX 960M discrete graphics. This laptop model has the most suitable bottom cover for a cooling pad;
there are well-open grilles for blowing the fans and heat-conducting tubes.
In this case, I ran only two 15-minute stress tests and got the following results:
1) no cooling pad temperature 61 °C 2) with cooling pad 57 °C
As you can see, the temperature was lowered a little, but not very significant, minus 4 °C.
Next cooling pad test on the ASUS TUF gaming
laptop with a Core i5-8300H CPU and GeForce GTX 1050Ti GPU. This laptop model has small
ventilation holes. It doesn't look promising, but let's check the results of efficient cooling.
In this case, the result can be surprising: 1) no cooling pad temperature 79 °C
2) with cooling pad 66 °C
Despite the small air ventilation holes, the effectiveness of the
cooling pad is clearly visible, and it lowered the temperature by 13 °C.
It actually isn't as counterintuitive as one would think at first glance. Smaller
intake grills placed right on key components help maintain the engineered airflow, where large open
areas can cause turbulence that interferes with the most efficient airflow. So, the consistency
and efficiency of the airflow are more important than just the overall volume of the airflow.
Next comes the Asus ROG Zephyrus gaming laptop. I took this laptop model as an
example in which there is no point in using a cooling pad because there are no
holes in the bottom cover for ventilation. Without any air vents - the cooling pad is
not effective because the bottom plate plastic or thin aluminum is first not
in direct contact with any heating elements, nor is it particularly thermally conductive.
This laptop has air vents located on the inner cover above the keyboard. In the case of the
Asus ROG Zephyrus, only the undervolting CPU will help. I left a link in the description.
Everything is the same with the Dell XPS 9365 laptop, which has a completely closed
bottom cover. It's the same with the Apple MacBook Pro and Apple MacBook Air models.
The bottom cover of these laptops is without ventilation grilles;
the best what you can do here is clean dust and replace the thermal paste to reduce overheating.
The next laptop is ASUS UX461. This is a very interesting case when is a cooling pad not
effective. You can see a ventilation grill on the bottom cover, but if you remove the bottom cover,
you will see that this grill doesn't give direct access to blowing the cooling system.
So, the cooling pad is not effective in this case and before buying a cooling pad,
make sure that the air vents give direct access to the laptop cooling system.
Now let's test the efficiency of the vacuum fan paired with a cooling pad.
How it works: the vacuum fan is installed next to the ventilation
grill and pulls hot air out of the laptop. The kit includes silicone tips; all four have
different sizes and angles. Next, check which silicone tip adheres as well as possible to the
ventilation grill of your laptop. But here, you should know that this vacuum fan is not universal;
in some cases, it will not be in close contact with the vent grill, and efficiency will be lost.
I took the warmest laptop for this test based on the Core-i7 3630QM CPU and GeForce GT 650M GPU.
1) Without cooling pad, the temperature is very high - 96 °C
2) Then I test with a cooling pad and remove the bottom cover for a
direct blowing of the heat-conducting tube. I get a significant decrease in
temperature to 81 °C 3) And the final test,
I connect a vacuum fan complete with a cooling pad temperature drops to 77 °C
As a result, the temperature was reduced by as much as 19 °C. So,
the vacuum fan helped to reduce the temperature by 5 °C.
Let's summarize the tests of
cooling pad vs no cooling pad. The cooling pad is effective,
but the level of efficiency is different for each laptop. If the laptop is cleaned from dust,
the cooling pad will reduce heat from 5 to 15 degrees Celsius, but it all depends on
the air vents in your laptop's bottom cover. Of course, you can drill ventilation holes yourself,
but this is a topic for another video. A vacuum fan can also be useful and reduce
the temperature by a couple of degrees, but you should not expect more from it.
How to choose the right laptop cooling pad? - The size of a 13-inch and 17-inch
laptop is different, so the cooling pad must match the size of your laptop.
How many fans are better for the laptop cooling pad? - The number of fans doesn't matter for
its efficient cooling; the main thing is the fan's location on the cooling pad matches the
vents on the laptop's bottom cover. It may be just two fans, but they have aimed directly at
the ventilation grilles and give more efficient airflow than a cooling pad with five fans. So,
the direct airflow is more important than just the overall volume of the airflow from 5 fans.
Which cooling pad to buy, expensive or cheap? - There isn't much difference between the cooling
pad for $20 and $50; at the most will be design differences. The best way to choose
a cooling pad according to your laptop, which I mentioned earlier. You can find
a wide choice of the best laptop cooling pad on amazon; I left links in the description.
And in conclusion, if your laptop doesn't have ventilation grills,
or the cooling pad didn't help solve the problem with overheating,
I recommend watching the video about undervolting CPU and a video where I show all the possible
ways how to fix laptop overheating. For more info, check out the links in the description.
So, guys, that's all - you were on HowFixit, and see you next time.