I have a Compaq Presario 700AP laptop that gets awfully hot. It’s not that anything’s malfunctioning… the built-in heatsink/fan is working fine… it’s just that the laptop tends to get very hot, like laptops do.
Is there any heat sink or cooling solution I can use to keep it cool ? Any way I can add an additional heatsink or fan to the laptop ? I know this is possible for PCs, but I’m not sure about laptops.
Is there any external cooling solution that I could strap on to / under the laptop ?
Currently, I eject the CD-ROM tray every once in a while to cool the laptop down a bit, and it works as an effective heat sink, since the underside of the CD-ROM tray, being metallic, gets excessively hot.
Weird suggestions are welcome. Homemade solutions will be given a thought.
Ambient Conditions: Usually, not an AC room. Room temperature averages 30 Celsius / 86 Farenheit. Humidity high.
System Config: Windows XP Home, 128MB RAM, AMD 1096 Mhz. Not overclocked.
I will spare you the story of my go’ round with Compaq on the overheating problem with my 700 series Athlon notebook (715US) . It continued to lock up randomly under XP even with only a factory fresh XP Home restore being loaded. It took a few calls and I sent the unit to service twice, but they finally acknowledged before the second trip to service that overheating was “an issue” for that unit, and it would be fixed in warranty. IIRC they swapped out the MB or did some mod on the heatsink/CPU.
If you don’t want to send the unit in for servicing or if it is giving you no problems, they may have fixed the issue by the time you bought your unit. To mitigate overheating you can flip out the back legs of the unit which will give the unit some airspace underneath it to radiate heat away, or you can go to Staples or Circuit City and get a small notebook swivel stand (around 20- 30) that will lift the notebook of the desk 1/2 inch to an inch or so and let you adjust tilt. I did this partly for airlfow, but also because if I spill coffee or soda on my desk the stand lets the notebook have a safe, slightly elevated haven above the advancing spill.
I should also mention that I use a remote wireless USB Logitech keyboard mouse combo (works very nicely around $70- $80 most places) with my notebook that lets me use the notebook without touching it on the stand. The stand (from Staples) is plenty sturdy enough for typing but not toucing the unit keeps it pristine and keeps crap from falling into the keyboard and eliminates the mechanical beating and vibration that pounding the keyboard would produce. The full sized KB and mouse are also a lot easier to use than the notebook keyboard and touchpad. I’ve had the unit for about a year and it’s as pristine as the day I bought it.
It hasn’t given me any lockups to date. I flip the clips whenever I use it on a table or hard surface, but the problem is that I use it often on my lap while on the sofa and the heat makes it very uncomfortable. Using a hard board between the laptop and my lap helps me, but doesn’t do much for the laptop. The airflow under the laptop, even with the clips out, is inadequate to cool it.
So far the “eject the CD-ROM tray” seems to be the best solution, but it increases the chances of the lens getting dirty.
Would a home made ice/liquid cooling solution be recommended ?
Would a battery powered cooling fan stuck to the underside be effective ?
They sell PCMCIA cooling fans that supposedly work quite well, and are cheap to boot. They go into a PCMCIA slot and either suck out hot air or blow in cool air.
Seriously, there’s a reason why they stopped calling them laptops and started calling them “portable computers”. It’s functioning normally, it’s built to withstand the heat. But do not place it directly on your lap.
Yup. I read that story through a link from some other thread. The SDMB does keep you informed of these things. FWIW, I use it on my thighs rather than on my lap.
Thanks for the links to those cooling solutions, astro, that’s quite on the lines of what I was looking for. The Phase Change cooler sounds really interesting.
Yup. I read that story through a link from some other thread. The SDMB does keep you informed of these things. FWIW, I use it on my thighs rather than on my lap.