Notebook coolers don't really have that much of an effect on some notebooks, unless you have a really anemic fan and you need your laptop raised a bit, I really don't think it's worth buying one just for the possible cooling benefits.
The main problem with cooling a laptop is the fact that there isn't enough space to put anything better than 1-2 heatpipes and a couple of aluminium fins in there, extra airflow won't fix that.
I bought a Zalman cooler and the temperature difference was almost 0, due to the fact that my laptop's cooling ability wasn't limited by the airflow, but by the few heatpipes and aluminium fins it had, if I would buy a notebook cooler, I would buy it mostly because it's a nice stand, offers some extra USB ports and if it has a fan, it should be silent. Be weary of notebook coolers with very big fans, my experience with >140mm fans is that a lot of them come with crappy bearings and buzz at low speeds.

If you ask me all these coolers are a waste of money. If you want cooler laptop, buy SSD instead. And clean it regularly so it's not all filled with dust.

AndreiDNotebook coolers don't really have that much of an effect on some notebooks, unless you have a really anemic fan and you need your laptop raised a bit, I really don't think it's worth buying one just for the possible cooling benefits.
The main problem with cooling a laptop is the fact that there isn't enough space to put anything better than 1-2 heatpipes and a couple of aluminium fins in there, extra airflow won't fix that.
I bought a Zalman cooler and the temperature difference was almost 0, due to the fact that my laptop's cooling ability wasn't limited by the airflow, but by the few heatpipes and aluminium fins it had, if I would buy a notebook cooler, I would buy it mostly because it's a nice stand, offers some extra USB ports and if it has a fan, it should be silent. Be weary of notebook coolers with very big fans, my experience with >140mm fans is that a lot of them come with crappy bearings and buzz at low speeds.

Most intake vents on a laptop are located on the bottom of the laptop. while you can use things like books, dvd or CD cases to prop the back of your laptop up so the vents arent kissing the desk, there will still be a small pocket of dead air underneath it and that wont help the temperatures of your laptop.... Having a laptop cooler with small fans to keep the air moving can lower temps quite a bit even though the results might not be as drastic as one would hope and like to see. theres no denying that it prevents the laptop from overheating so long as there are vents at the bottom.


My last laptop always used to go into thermal shutdown when gaming untill i got a copper shim for the GPU and a laptop cooler. so for me, a laptop cooler was quite effective.

Im using the Zalman NC-1000, bought it about 3 or 4years back and its still worth every £ i spent on it though I would have prefered to pay a little less.

RejZoRIf you ask me all these coolers are a waste of money. If you want cooler laptop, buy SSD instead. And clean it regularly so it's not all filled with dust.

your thinking is flawed.

A mechanical HDD doesnt generate anywhere near as much heat as a CPU or GPU. However it does contribute to the heat and while switching from a mechanical takes that out of the equation, you still have the rest of the setup to deal with. (NB/SB chipset, GPU/CPU or other compenents that might generate heat)

having a laptop cooler keeps the air in the deadzone underneath the laptop flowing and flowing air means cooler temps as the cool air is sucked into the vents and not the warm air.

There are some laptop designs that dont work well with coolers as the intake vents arent located at the bottom of the laptop but at the side.

however those seem to be very few and far between these days.

If laptop coolers made no difference at all, nobody would make or sell them.

Wasted of money, I'd say.

I use laptop daily at work and a well-built laptop never needs any 3rd party cooling even during gaming.

Mine even has Nvidia 560 in it and I haven't needed an extra cooling.

But for a less than well built laptop, cooling pads can be a good thing, and they aren't THAT expensive.

AndreiDNotebook coolers don't really have that much of an effect on some notebooks, unless you have a really anemic fan and you need your laptop raised a bit, I really don't think it's worth buying one just for the possible cooling benefits.
The main problem with cooling a laptop is the fact that there isn't enough space to put anything better than 1-2 heatpipes and a couple of aluminium fins in there, extra airflow won't fix that.
I bought a Zalman cooler and the temperature difference was almost 0, due to the fact that my laptop's cooling ability wasn't limited by the airflow, but by the few heatpipes and aluminium fins it had, if I would buy a notebook cooler, I would buy it mostly because it's a nice stand, offers some extra USB ports and if it has a fan, it should be silent. Be weary of notebook coolers with very big fans, my experience with >140mm fans is that a lot of them come with crappy bearings and buzz at low speeds.

As someone who has used a laptop that will overheat when watching HD movies, a cooling pad is needed, which is why people make them.

RejZoRIf you ask me all these coolers are a waste of money. If you want cooler laptop, buy SSD instead. And clean it regularly so it's not all filled with dust.

That will do nothing for computer that are cheaply built, like HPs and Compaqs that have a tiny heatsink with a 30mm fan. Besides a cooler is much cheaper than an SSD, and if you want a SSD with a fair amount of space it'll end up costing more than the laptop it's self.

Kevinheraiz<snip>and if you want a SSD with a fair amount of space it'll end up costing more than the laptop it's self.

on the contrary... I dont know if this is global but samsung are doing a lot of cash back deals with their products. I can buy a 256GB 830 SSD for around £140-150. throw in £20 cash back and its almost as cheap as how 128GB SSDs used to cost at the start of this year.

put in an SSD and put the hard drive in a small USB 2.0/3.0 external Chassis and dump your music or videos on it. Its exactly the same thing i have done except i went for a Sandisk Extreme 240GB SSD for my laptop and ive only used about 80GB in total and the rest is kept on a external drive.

After spending some time in stores comparing different models, I have recently purchased a nzxt cryo e40 cooler (25 €) for my laptop and both the cpu and gpu temps dropped from 80º to 67º while gaming... so yes, laptop coolers work. The thing is to buy an effective and affordable one, most of laptop coolers are quite crappy (cheap plastic construction, bad fan placement or overall design, ludicrously expensive if they have a metal base, unneeded features, many of them are only meant to use on a table, etc).

The hard disk heat in a laptop is a secondary matter, I switched mine to a ssd time ago and the temp remained the same. For temp problems a laptop cooler is much better investment.

All my laptops were damn hot until i've installed SSD into them. CPU has active cooling and gets allt he heat exhausted. HDD has the biggest surface of all components, yet it releases all of the heat inside the notebook case...