I rarely disconnect my laptop- it’s used pretty mucy like a desktop 99% of the time- but I keep seeing people with cooling stands. Questions:
1- Do I need a cooling stand for leaving it at home?
2- Do I need one if I started taking it with me more?
3- Are there any features that I should look for in them?
Thanks
j
Does it heat up badly? If not, you don’t.
I got my first one (still the best one I’ve had) simply to use it as a riser, as my home setup involved a full-size keyboard and I’d often have a crick in my neck from too many hours spent on it at the office. That laptop is still in use ten years later. I had another laptop which had bad cooling problems and keeping it on the riser made it able to work for longer times but it still would BSOD on me and it died for practical purposes after only one year (it only works when connected to the wall).
If your laptop doesn’t heat up to the point where touching it involves wondering whether you should whip out the sunburn cream and it doesn’t give you the blue screen of death frequently, I wouldn’t bother with a cooler base.
If you do get a cooler base, select one that’s metal and feels cool to the touch; those will cool the laptop effectively without using additional energy.
Use a phone book. That’s what they’re for (these days).
I prop the back end of mine up to give it a bit more airflow and that’s all you really need on newer notebooks. Older ones with P4’s did benefit from active cooling. New low power chips not so much. Notebook coolers are generally unnecessary unless you are running an older notebook or a bleeding edge, barn burner of a chip.
My old laptop started badly overheating and shutting down a couple of years ago. I bought a cooling stand (which cost next to nothing anyway) and it’s been fine ever since. In the right circumstances these things are worth their weight in gold.
The problem with laptops is that their cooling fan(s) have limited space inside the machine. Dust is a serious problem. When I took my 3 year old laptop apart (for other reasons) the cooling fins were jammed with lint. I had noticed prior to this that the fans were running faster and hotter. After cleaning them I never hear them running and it runs much cooler.
A laptop on a desk will collect less lint than one used on the couch. If you notice a change in the sound of your laptop fans then it’s time for a little cleaning. Remove the battery, move the back over the fans and pick out the lint with a wooden toothpick.
It isn’t just the fans, sometimes the boxes are horribly designed for airflow, so that for example the majority of the vents are under the laptop :smack: I’ve even seen models where all the vents were on the bottom. With those teeny weeny feet they have, that doesn’t make for good cooling.
100% agree. I had the same experience. Like the OP, I use my laptop 99% as a desktop machine. It kept overheating and then it would shut down. After I got the cooling stand, I have not had that problem any more.
My laptop used to give the BSOD when I was playing games. I realised it was overheating, if I make sure the vents are free of dust then I don’t have a problem.
Many laptops that have these problems are a result of user error. Since they are so portable and light they are often used on a lap, couch or bed. Problems can occur when the vents are blocked by extra fabric, blankets or padding.
My home laptop is used primarily on the bed, and the vents on the side are easily covered by blankets when I set it down. My solution (free) is to use an old empty 3-ring binder. It props the laptop off the bed, has plenty of airspace between the two covers, keeps my lap cool and it angles the keyboard towards the user. Oh, yeah, and it’s free, and reusing…and free.
I’ll have to clean out the vents, since I’ve never done that.
I recall reading about some software that would tack the temperature of the CPU, but have had no experience with it.
You may not need it since you use it on a desktop. My work laptop sits on a stand, but that is just to position the screen since I use an external keyboard and mouse.
Laptops tend to run hot. I haven’t seen a modern laptop that wouldn’t benefit from sitting on a cooling stand. If your CPU or anything else in the laptop is getting above 45 deg C, then a cooling stand will help in the long run. Heat is the number one killer in laptops. A rough rule of thumb is that every 10 deg C cuts the expected life of the device in half.
Yeah, it’s kinda funny that the one place you can’t put a lot of laptops is on your lap.