What do you use as cooler on your notebook?

[mw86]

I use a Zalman. I first used the NC-2000 which fits the same size laptop but found my only problem with it was it only had two small fans. It worked great for any laptop especially with the large frame of aluminum. When I got my Alienware M17X I bought this NC-3000U. The Zalman NC3000 notebook cooler comes with an ultra quiet 220mm fan, which gives great cooling, without creating a large amount of noise. The base of the Zalman NC3000 can easily hold a 17 inch laptop measuring 365cm(L) x 400cm(W).

[Michael]

i used the NZXT Cryo LX on my R2 and i was very happy with it.

It's built extremely well, hot a 4 way USB hub plus it's vents were perfectly aligned with the R2's vents locations.

[mw86]

I looked at that one before another great cooler for sure Michael. You use that on your HP right? The one you mentioned in Benchmark thread? I think You should post your Benches in there anyway.

[Michael]

you want me to bench a i5-430m ?

[mw86]

My last Computer was an HP HDX18t w/ Intel Q9000 and GT130M, and a single heat sink and fan for both. I still managed to lightly overclock it and get it up to speeds worth playing a couple games at. I think I got 30fps @ 1080P on Dirt2 lol. You sold your R2 so you have something lined up. Check these out not bad for a custom built.

[Michael]

^^ those are nice builds!

Yeah, i tried to overclock that HP but i can't find a way to do it.

for now i am using it for work only and it does the job, and i just ordered the R3 so waiting for it

[Brian]

I use a light weight Targus Chill Mat. It's light plastic and the bottom has padding so I can put a notebook on top of it and use it on my lap. I never turn it's fans on because these notebooks don't really need that and frankly don't benefit much from positive air pressure.

[mw86]

Nice portable lap friendly laptop cooler Brian. Brian these laptops have great standard cooling. Recently I found out though it was barely adequate at close to default tdp when not utilizing any cooler. Such as I've found 65 TDP 62 TDC to be my max to not throttle when under a stress test in a room with Summer-like ambient temperatures utilizing no extra cooler or variation of the way the laptop is meant to sit. But my thermal room was definitely increased when decent cooling was supplementing the units stock cooling. This is on stock paste with a recent cleaning tear-down and minor ducting mods. Sure repasting with better materials would improve this but that would be saying the out of factory of these laptops is inadequate.

[StamatisX]

Since my laptop never moves from the desk, I have it on a Cryo LX too, the only temperature differences I have seen are during idle or very light use but nothing more than 2-3 C.

I use this cooler more because of the lifted position it offers to the laptop rather than its cooling.

[mw86]

I'm surprised really. My cooler allows me to see turbo boost speeds more often. The Aluminum chassis of the R2 is always cool to the touch on the cooler and slightly over room temperature without it. I like the raised position too. This cooler has raisers in the back end which i fold out and use and as you may be able to see in the second pic I use two foam rubber pieces to raise the back even higher. The same foam pieces I use for that power supply cooler. Most of these are designed with ergonomics as number one priority and cooling as secondary. They wouldn't market them with fans if some laptops didn't overheat. I see atleast 10-15 degree celcius difference on Dell Inspiron with Core 2 Duo and HP HDX18 w/Core 2 Quad Q9000 when using my first cooler the Zalman NC-2000... two small fans but solid aluminum construction and centrifugal design. My mother owns the Inspiron and I sold my mother the HDX when I bought The M17X. I had encouraged her to buy the NC2000, she mainly just surfs the net and plays online games such as facebook games. Though these aren't programs of any intensity at all, those temps are attained with use of the cooler kept her entire computer 15 degree celcius cooler or so. Hard drives, Ram, CPU and especially batteries life expectancy is hindered by the same factor heat. So even though you notice only 2-3c difference and only at idle... that doesn't take into consideration the drop in temperatures on the components of the system and chassis of the laptop. Michael and Stam you both picked higher budgeted coolers and the track record probably shows that the Cryo LX can really make a large difference in temps. Being that out Alienware computers produce more heat when over-clocking then my toaster oven, one would only feel the difference on older inferior hardware where the benefit could be more pronounced.

[mw86]

I felt the same way until I recently did a run of Intel Burn Test without the cooler and barely maintained 65TDP without throttling. Heat kept just building around rear and lack of good air flow trapped the heat under and around the rear of the laptop. The laptop placed as designed directly on a table can build quite a bit of heat near heat sinks and fans normally.

[StamatisX]

I have the bottom cover of the laptop always off and surprisingly I can achieve the same temperature drop by using a book at the back of the laptop just to give it a nice angle of approximately 25 degrees. For me the biggest gain came from the retention mod and the thermal paste, the rest gave me minor improvements. On a different laptop I am sure it would have a much bigger impact.

[iloveb00bs]

been using the cooler master sf-19 at work. i would highly recommend this one, the fans are nice and strong. it has 4 addition usb ports, two of them are usb 3.0 which is nice. using it more as a dock then a cooler. it has some lighting effect that is real nice that goes along with alienware laptop very well. at home i just use a logitech lapdesk n500, no fans but the padding makes it very nice to use on your lap, and gaves a nice angle for typing on your desk.

[Michael]

^^ liked the logitech lap cooler.

Considering it, nice one man!

[mw86]

Maybe one of our members has built one themselves hope they post it here

Edited March 25, 2011 by mw86

[mw86]

That Cooler Master looks nice, great pics

[iloveb00bs]

had some free time today and decided to do mock up of a cooler. prolly will never make the real thing, but the mock up looks pretty cool so i just wanted to share with you guys.

[Brian]

That mockup looks great, what material is that? If it's plastic, seems you're already halfway done.

[iloveb00bs]

i have some scrap aluminum i used, the aluminum i have is pretty thin so i only made it 1/3 scale atm. so maybe fit an m11x or a netbook. once i have some real time off, i may try to make the real thing.

[mw86]

Iloveb00bs thats a great custom design I love the Alien heads, and the black and white color are amazing. They match your R3 cover great job!

[GetFound]

Hey, I just got and SF-19. I got the usb 2.0 like yours. I wanted the usb 3.0, mainly because it was all black. But since I have no usb 3.0 devices yet and the 2.0 one was $30 cheaper.

I cant really tell if it makes any difference. Since i use hwinfo and my temps are about the same with it on or off, even on high. Maybe the laptops fans kick on a bit later.

I am thinking about painting the rubber pieces black.

[iloveb00bs]

yeah i mainly use it as a docking station, i have everything connected to the cooler and only 1 usb from the cooler is connected to my laptop. painting the rubber pieces sounds like a cool idea, let me know how it goes, maybe try it out too.

[Huuy]

I was looking into buy the Zalman NC3000, but it looks like the fan is only big enough to cool the CPU and not the 2 GPUs. I was also looking into buying the NC-2000, but that one looks like you'll have to slide down the laptop a little for the R2 vents to align with the cooler's vents.

[mw86]

Well I have had both and yes you may have to slide the system down a little on the NC-2000... I found with my current NC-3000 that I still need to have the laptop lower down on the cooler, the back edge lined over top most set of holes seems to line it up perfect. It does not touch the table with the front edge of your laptop if you line it up like that so it does fit and work with large laptops... my brother and mother use NC-2000 with HP HDX-18t's so even 18 inch laptops will fit... I will have to really put it to the test with a M18x. You can with either of them block off the holes you don't need so it forces air straight into your intake only. The rubber piece at base of cooler on both of them are great to prevent air from blowing toward user and waste cooling, plus it helps create a nonslip surface. If you added 3 more at the other edges you could make more air pressure from cooler to air intake on laptop paired with all the extra air holes being covered would make some decent cooling. The normal design isn't bad though because cooling the aluminum surface of the laptop can help to reduce ambient chassis temperatures instead of just pushing cool air into laptop fan intake. On my M17 R2, when placed on the NC-3000 aligned like I mentioned still blew the air into GPU fans... If you look at those pics I posted there is a small space between aluminum with holes and fan blade. It seems just fine spreading air over entire surface of those holes. The 220MM fan is ultra quiet and there is always a little breeze blowing out from under my laptop. The logitech posted here seems to do just as good a job and seems similar as well as the SF-19.

Edited April 22, 2011 by mw86

[iloveb00bs]

i tried many coolers and can honestly say that they really don't do much for cooling for alienware systems since the cooling is pretty good already. just propping the back end of your laptop will gave you the same results but won't look as nice.

Edited April 22, 2011 by iloveb00bs