Laptop Cooling Pad effectiveness By How-FixIT

I think many who have a laptop, especially if it is a gaming laptop, have a problem with overheating and thinking about buying a cooling pad. Welcome to HowFixit and in this video I will explain to you in which cases a cooling pad can be effective. And also test the vacuum fan for cooling efficiency. I recommend watching this video, at the end I will give a couple of advices - what to do if even the cooling pad doesn't solve the overheating problem. Before buying a cooling pad, make sure your laptop is not overheating due dust-clogging of the cooling system. If you have never cleaned your laptop or changed the thermal paste, probably this is the reason 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, you need to figure out if the cooling pad will be effective when paired with your laptop. As an example, I took several laptops from different manufacturers to demonstrate to you in what cases a cooling pad will give real results in dropping temperatures. Turn the laptop over and check the ventilation holes on the bottom cover of the laptop case. For example, the Dell G5 laptop has a ventilation grill on the bottom cover.

If you remove the cover, you can see that there is direct access for blowing through this grille. There is also access to the heat-conducting pipes of the laptop cooling system, but unfortunately, the bottom cover blocks direct access for blowing to these pipes. In this case, we can conclude that a cooling pad can be effective when paired with this gaming laptop and now we will check it out. The test will be carried out in the AIDA64 program in the stress test mode for at least 15 minutes. Specifications of the tested laptop; CPU Core i7-8750H and GPU GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

The first 15 minute test without a cooling pad shows a temperature of 73-76 degrees Celsius. The second 15-minute test is already carried out with a cooling pad and we get 68-73 degrees Celsius. And for the experiment, let's conduct a third 15-minute test with a cooling pad and also remove the bottom cover, so, that the cooling pad directly cools the heat-conducting tubes. As a result, we get 67-72 degrees Celsius. If we average the numbers, we get the following: 1) without 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. The next tested gaming laptop is MSI GE62 with CPU Core i7-6700HQ 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, we run two 15 minute stress tests and get the following results: 1) without 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. The next tested gaming laptop is ASUS FX504 with a CPU Core i5-8300H and discrete graphics GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.

As you can see, this laptop model has very small ventilation holes. Let's see what it will give. Here's what we get after two tests: 1) without cooling pad temperature 79 °C 2) with cooling pad 66 °C In this case, the result is really surprising. Despite the very small air ventilation holes, the effectiveness of the cooling pad is clearly visible and lowered the temperature by 13 °C. Next comes the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 laptop.

I took this model as an example of a laptop in which there is no point in using a cooling pad at all, because there are no holes on the bottom cover for ventilation. This laptop has vents located on the inner cover of the laptop case, above the keyboard. So, this laptop is a great example where there is no point in buying a cooling pad. In the case of the Asus ROG Zephyrus, only the undervolting of the CPU will help. I left 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 this laptop without ventilation grilles, and the only thing that can be done here is to clean the dust and replace the thermal paste to reduce overheating. The next laptop is ASUS UX461. This is a very interesting case and this laptop should have been shown as an example.

On the bottom cover you can see a ventilation grill, but if you remove the bottom cover, you will see that this grill doesn't give direct access for blowing the cooling system. So, the cooling pad is not effective in this case and before buying a cooling pad, make sure that the ventilation grill give 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 place near the grille and it pulls hot air out of the laptop.

The kit includes silicone tips and all four silicone tips have different sizes and angles. Next, check which of the 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 and in some cases it will not be in close contact with the grill and because of this, efficiency will be lost. For this test, I took the most warm laptop based on the Core-i7 3630QM CPU and GeForce GT 650M.1) without cooling pad the temperature is very high - 96 °C 2) then I test with a cooling pad and also remove the cover for direct blowing of the heat-conducting tube. We get a significant decrease in temperature to 81 °C 3) now connect the vacuum fan and complete with a cooling pad, the 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 The cooling pad is really effective, but as you can see, the level of efficiency is different for each laptop. The most important thing for using a cooling pad is the ventilation grill on the bottom of the laptop. If the laptop is cleaned from dust, then the cooling pad will reduce heat from 5 °C to 15 °C in depending on your laptop. 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 and therefore the cooling pad must match the size of the laptop. How many fans are better. It is better to choose a cooling pad with three or better five fans to make sure there's enough to cover the entire bottom case of the laptop. Which cooling pad to buy, expensive or cheap? Basically, there isn't much of a difference between the cooling pad for $ 20 or $ 50, at the most will be design differences.

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. I left link in the description. So guys, that's all, you've been on HowFixit and see you next time.

Source : How-FixIT