I'm not sure how many people actually use one of those notebook coolers available in the market. There are quite a few brands available at you-know-where here in KL, from the pricier ones such as Cooler Master, Zalman, Belkin, etc and to the cheapies that cost you as low as RM20. Well, some of them starts at RM1 at Lelong... I've got both - a nice Cooler Master Notepal and a cheap RM30 with 3 fans.

The point of this entry is simply to share my experience with those who are wondering whether these things worth the money they cost. Debates are aplenty on the net on whether they actually help or are just a waste of money. You can have a look at this thread at Lowyat's forum for example.

See the end of this article for my results

(post continue below...)

Malaysia is such a hot country with high humidity, sometimes even the cold air-conditioned environment at the office doesn't really make any difference to a notebook's operating temperature, and the dual core processors that many notebooks have nowadays doesn't help either. If you don't know it by now, let me tell you - high temperature is not good for any notebook. Or for any electronics for that matter. It's baaaaad... very bad. It can fry the precious, expensive electronics in the lappies especially if you're a torrent aficionado like me.

I recently bought another one of these notebook coolers i.e. the Cooler Master Notepal - the regular black one (not P1 nor Widescreen). Got it at Sri Komputer (I know... but they've got black in stock) for RM90. I've already in possession of another one, a cheapie, but it doesn't seem to help much, and I wanted one for the office and one at home. I figured that I'll just get another better unit and use it at home, and use the cheapie (it doesn't have any brand name on it) at the much colder office environment.

My Notebook is a Compaq Presario V2617TN (Core Duo 2GB RAM) that I use to mainly for web graphics, which is pretty much light processing and other normal use. Occasionally I would use it for heavier stuff - rendering graphics for print, sometimes even video. Get this, normal running temperature (only Firefox) without any cooler as reported by Speed Fan, is between 50° to 56°C! - and this is at the rather cool air-conditioned office. The temperature is quite similar when using the cheap cooler at my non-air conditioned home.

This Presario has 1 fan blowing air out, and an air vent, both at the bottom of the unit. I found out that the Notepal's fans blow air upwards, towards the lappie's bottom. That won't do...

So I turned the 2 fans the other way around - you can do this with Notepals (dunno about P1), which is one of the reasons I chose it. Look at the picture on the left - all you need is a good screw driver. 16 screws later and the fans are now blowing down, sucking air away from the bottom of the lappie.

The result? Well, I'm at home, no air-conditioning, turned off the desk fan and now sweating after dealing with the Notepal 16 screws, and the lappie is running idle at about 32C, with Firefox it goes up to 35° - 42°C max...

Easily 10°C cooler. Need I say more?

Of course, the Notepal fans are not located directly below the lappie's fan and air vent - these are in the middle of the lappie and the Notepal fans are at the far end (near the back of the lappie).

Which is just as well cause I find that the HOTTEST spot on my lappie is on the back left corner where the power unit is located, and there's another vent here as well, facing the back. This place, especially at the bottom used to be almost too hot to even touch (!), but now is just slightly warm.

Also, I just noticed that the Notepal main surface is not actually straight/flat - it's curved downwards in the middle from back to front, so there's more space between it and my lappie in the middle part, where the lappie's fan and air vent are located.

Hope that makes sense, and below is what SpeedFan shows as I'm finishing this blog entry. That means having at least Firefox, FTP and my image editor running (to do all these images), in a non-air conditioned room. I guess that makes me happy camper, eh?