If you have an old laptop that runs hot or even overheats and shuts down when stressing it, like playing games or watching movies, and nothing else that you've tried has worked, this is for you.
I was looking around on Amazon for cooling options and finally stumbled on a type of product that's been on the market for only a little over a year, apparently. It's a fan that attaches to the side or rear vent on your laptop and pulls hot air out of the laptop. That's different than the cooling pads that blow cool air into the laptop and barely work at all.
It's a little unsightly and can get loud when it's really doing its job, but, man, does it work! Before, my old laptop was frequently shutting off after just a few minutes of playing 3D games or watching HD movies. I've now been using the cooler for two weeks and it hasn't shut off once. In fact, based on the temperature software that I've been using (Speccy), it hasn't even gotten close, maxing out at least 30 degrees F cooler than the shutoff temperature that it was reaching before. The keyboard and underside don't even get very warm anymore.
Obviously, if your laptop is highly portable, this may not be for you. If, instead, your laptop mostly stays at home and acts as a desktop replacement, then the fact that this sticks out probably doesn't matter much, especially if it keeps you from having to replace the laptop just yet. Even then, you can still disconnect it and leave it behind when you want to take the laptop somewhere (or even take the fan with you and attach it only if needed).
Even though it's a relatively new product, there are all kinds of brands of them. As far as I can tell, they all use the same Japanese fans, so they all offer similar cooling performance. The differences are just in the build quality and minor details of the implementations.
I bought the one pictured above, which is this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Opolar-Laptop-Temperature-Display-Cooling/dp/B01E3Q7FS6
That's the best-quality and most-featured one. It's one of the few with an LCD display, so you can see the temperature and which modes it's in. It's $29.99. You can find other brands (most of them from Asia) for as low as $9.99, but $29.99 still seemed reasonable to get the best-quality one, with the most features, and have peace of mind, so I sprang for that.
A few of the cheaper options are:
This $10 one (same manufacturer as the most expensive one, but no automatic mode and no LCD)
This $15.99 one (has unique clip design that could make it more easily removable if it fits your laptop)
This $16.99 one (has a display, but an odd design)
This $19.99 one (has a nice, simple design and a display, but no reviews yet... though an earlier model had really good reviews)
(The last two, along with quite a few others that I haven't listed, weren't on Amazon when I shopped only 3 weeks ago. These fans are so effective that China is pumping out new designs like crazy, apparently)
Anyways, since I hadn't heard of these until a few weeks ago and lived with a hot and overheating laptop for longer than I needed to, I thought that I'd share this to let others with similar problems know that these things exist and really do work wonderfully.
I was looking around on Amazon for cooling options and finally stumbled on a type of product that's been on the market for only a little over a year, apparently. It's a fan that attaches to the side or rear vent on your laptop and pulls hot air out of the laptop. That's different than the cooling pads that blow cool air into the laptop and barely work at all.
It's a little unsightly and can get loud when it's really doing its job, but, man, does it work! Before, my old laptop was frequently shutting off after just a few minutes of playing 3D games or watching HD movies. I've now been using the cooler for two weeks and it hasn't shut off once. In fact, based on the temperature software that I've been using (Speccy), it hasn't even gotten close, maxing out at least 30 degrees F cooler than the shutoff temperature that it was reaching before. The keyboard and underside don't even get very warm anymore.
Obviously, if your laptop is highly portable, this may not be for you. If, instead, your laptop mostly stays at home and acts as a desktop replacement, then the fact that this sticks out probably doesn't matter much, especially if it keeps you from having to replace the laptop just yet. Even then, you can still disconnect it and leave it behind when you want to take the laptop somewhere (or even take the fan with you and attach it only if needed).
Even though it's a relatively new product, there are all kinds of brands of them. As far as I can tell, they all use the same Japanese fans, so they all offer similar cooling performance. The differences are just in the build quality and minor details of the implementations.
I bought the one pictured above, which is this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Opolar-Laptop-Temperature-Display-Cooling/dp/B01E3Q7FS6
That's the best-quality and most-featured one. It's one of the few with an LCD display, so you can see the temperature and which modes it's in. It's $29.99. You can find other brands (most of them from Asia) for as low as $9.99, but $29.99 still seemed reasonable to get the best-quality one, with the most features, and have peace of mind, so I sprang for that.
A few of the cheaper options are:
This $10 one (same manufacturer as the most expensive one, but no automatic mode and no LCD)
This $15.99 one (has unique clip design that could make it more easily removable if it fits your laptop)
This $16.99 one (has a display, but an odd design)
This $19.99 one (has a nice, simple design and a display, but no reviews yet... though an earlier model had really good reviews)
(The last two, along with quite a few others that I haven't listed, weren't on Amazon when I shopped only 3 weeks ago. These fans are so effective that China is pumping out new designs like crazy, apparently)
Anyways, since I hadn't heard of these until a few weeks ago and lived with a hot and overheating laptop for longer than I needed to, I thought that I'd share this to let others with similar problems know that these things exist and really do work wonderfully.
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