My wife's laptop overheats from time to time and shuts down. Lately we've been propping it up on a couple of VCR tapes for better airflow.

At the local computer store we saw a laptop cooling plate that sits under the laptop. It's go a fan or two blowing air out from underneath. It looks like a good idea to me but I'm wondering what experiences people have had with these things.

Thanks for your input,

speedfreak227

First try buying an air can, and blow the shit out of your vents..
if its not under warranty u better open it up, and clean the interior too.
remember, NEVER put ur laptop on beds / sofas, etc. cause it sucks massive quantities of dust and ur risking of drawning it.
I was thinking of buying a laptop cooling plate too, but i never managed to find somebody who ever used one to ask their experience.
good luck

When I was repairing computers for living, there was once new asus laptop that had trouble staying up, I found finally that cpu heatsink/cooler was actually loose, so needed to attach it again and it started running just fine, great quality control :P

Often there were just fan died, those were quite cheap and easy to replace, depends of course from laptop.

Usually if a computer does overheat its either badly overclocked, or some hardware is broken (fan).

I would try to find the problem instead of buying a cooling table/plate.

I use a cooling plate when I am gaming, my laptop overheats severely when I run high end games, it's a 3 fan setup, I added some more ground clearence by constructing a simple frame with lego, so the laptop can sit 2 1/2 inches off the table, with this I never had trouble with overheating again.

Quote from jibber :

Usually if a computer does overheat its either badly overclocked, or some hardware is broken (fan).

.......errrm, no. There are sooooooooooo many more reasons as to why a computer would over heat I don't even know where to start. He is talking about a laptop, I've watched movies on my girlfriends laptop and it's started to burn my legs!

Just because it over heats doesn't mean there is something wrong with it, why else do you think they make these cooling fans!

What brand is it?

Because people make fan control programs for certain laptops, and you can keep it cool 24/7. (It's what I have to use).

But seeing that you mention you need to elevate it, chances are it isn't going to be a brand that I know a program for. Because any laptop with fans on the bottom are not going to stay cool. You need a laptop with fans on the side.

If you can, try and find a cooling pad that has fan suction on the bottom and expenses the head out the side. They are at most electronics stores and online places.

Quote from garph :

.......errrm, no. There are sooooooooooo many more reasons as to why a computer would over heat I don't even know where to start. He is talking about a laptop, I've watched movies on my girlfriends laptop and it's started to burn my legs!

Just because it over heats doesn't mean there is something wrong with it, why else do you think they make these cooling fans!

No that is not right, if laptop overheat it is either malfunction or it is such shitty design that it should be recycled immediately, designer of laptop should be burnt and company that make them should be given to some 3rd world country.

Quote from JTbo :

No that is not right, if laptop overheat it is either malfunction or it is such shitty design that it should be recycled immediately, designer of laptop should be burnt and company that make them should be given to some 3rd world country.

OR

Buy a cooling pad?

Quote from garph :

OR

Buy a cooling pad?

Manufacturer should buy it for him, I mean if there is design flaw they do have responsibility to fix it even warranty is out.

Quote from JTbo :

Manufacturer should buy it for him, I mean if there is design flaw they do have responsibility to fix it even warranty is out.

......errrr, yeah so apart from getting laptop companies to design laptops with better cooling, burning the designers who don't design laptops with better cooling and getting them to buy him a cooling pad because they haven't designed it right in the first place thus opening the flood gates for millions of others to claim their free cooling pad.

Do you think he should buy a cooling pad/plate himself for his wife's overheating laptop?

Quote from garph :

......errrr, yeah so apart from getting laptop companies to design laptops with better cooling, burning the designers who don't design laptops with better cooling and getting them to buy him a cooling pad because they haven't designed it right in the first place thus opening the flood gates for millions of others to claim their free cooling pad.

Do you think he should buy a cooling pad/plate himself for his wife's overheating laptop?

Lol, well sure if it does help as it seem to be case, but I strongly recommend to find out reason of overheating before that.

Also it would not harm to find out if it really is design flaw, as if it is then manufacturer should be responsible, at least I would not tolerate such device at all.

Ok, thanks for all the help, but some people have blown this a little bit out of proportion. It's not like it's onstantly overheating. SOMETIMES, with extended use, it will overheat and shut down.

Quote from Tweaker :

If you can, try and find a cooling pad that has fan suction on the bottom and expenses the head out the side. They are at most electronics stores and online places.

that is exactly what we saw. It sucked air into the top and expelled it out the back end. It looked like a good design but it was $50 Canadian so I thought I'd get some oppinions first.

We're going to look into our warantee and see if opening the case to clean the heat exchanger will void anything.

speedfreak227.

Quote from speedfreak227 :

We're going to look into our warantee and see if opening the case to clean the heat exchanger will void anything.

speedfreak227.

Cleaning it won't help much, unless of course it is REALLY backed up. But you should be able to see if it is clogged just by looking through the vents.

Still, a laptop with fans on the bottom is always prone to overheating, no matter how hard the fans work. I bet your laptop is running at 80-100 C to have it shut down like that, and that is REALLY bad. That is enough to melt the cooling paste on the CPU, so you could have just metal on metal contact.

Erm Tweak, cooling paste is only there to connect the CPU and the cooler as much as possible (fill little scratches for example), so it wouldn't have any effect if it melts... The only problem would be if the paste starts moving (which is pretty unlikely because there shouldn't be so much of it in there anyway)...

One machine had cpu fan failure, it was older (then new) AthlonXP, fan actually had melted and falled to bottom of case, there was then this thermal tape at bottom of heatsink, it had been melted and made really nice mess, also cpu and heatsink were like glued to each other as that thermal tape had burned and formed some kind of adhesive.
After I got those separate I found out core being rainbow colour and yet still it did work with new heatsink

You can guess how much heat there have to be to melt fan plastic, something like 180C I guess, but amazing what those chips can sometimes take.

My flash programming co-worker uses it on his laptop. Also my boss uses it on his lap top. I would not say they sware by them, but they do help for the most part.

It sounds like a over heating error, but it could be way more then that, or very little.

1. Check the computers software.
   • The OS,
   • drivers,
   • system level software,
   • programs you have running, and
   • the BIOS.
   Update anything that is out of date.
   
2. If you have an older computer, then check the vents for any obstruction including dust, and/or grime (If you should happen to find any of that, do clean it out with compressed air how ever only use short blasts of the air, as it can break internal parts of the computer.).
   
3. If there is none, or you have cleaned it and still have an issue with it, then I would take it apart can check the internals, hell it could be something really stupid like the heat sink touching the case and grounding it out although that is very rare.

Quote from bbman :

Erm Tweak, cooling paste is only there to connect the CPU and the cooler as much as possible (fill little scratches for example), so it wouldn't have any effect if it melts... The only problem would be if the paste starts moving (which is pretty unlikely because there shouldn't be so much of it in there anyway)...

As Jtbo explains it is bad if it melts aways because it can spread onto other surfaces of the CPU and computer. Not only that, most laptop heatsinks are pushed down by a mechanism, and if that is loose, the only thing saving the CPU would be the grease. Laptops can lose the paste very easily if it reaches a high temperature. And there is only a little bit in there to have melt away.

Last Sunday I gave my laptop a LONG overdue service, bought it new about two years ago.
Imo they really should be dropped in every six months or so for a clean out, especially if you use it a lot.
I decided to give it a go, the guy's at the local PC store probably would charge some mad amount, being the miser I am I cracked out the tools, the whole thing was a mess and did not really go to plan ...

This is the crap that came out from behind the copper cooler! I thought that it was a black sponge in there!


Dirty fan:


I dropped the bloody fan and four blades went 'boing':

> the tools for the fix:



A week later still good Go Superglue!!!


It may be service time for the laptop speedfreak, it's a piece of cake todo, just don't do what I did; go to give out to the kid's and drop the fan on the floor

Edit: Lmao!!! I bet you all are wondering what the tweesers was for ey?....I was doing my eyebrows lol!!!

CSU1, ouch that certainly was bad luck with fan, but you did great job fixing it

Hmm, I have not cleaned my laptop inside for 7 years, maybe I should, but then again it is so old that there is only one fan and that is not even for CPU , but for whole interior. Bit old it is, but just enough for surfing, typing and adjusting fuel maps from my car

CSU1, next time you're taking digital pictures, turn on the option that looks like a flower. It forces your camera to focus on very close objects.

Otherwise, nice pics of crap buildup. I've pulled out some nasty dustballs from my comp's heatsink in the past too. It's long overdue for a cleaning.

speedfreak227

Quote from garph :

.......errrm, no. There are sooooooooooo many more reasons as to why a computer would over heat I don't even know where to start. He is talking about a laptop, I've watched movies on my girlfriends laptop and it's started to burn my legs!

Just because it over heats doesn't mean there is something wrong with it, why else do you think they make these cooling fans!

"...errrm, no."

I've worked as an information technologist for over 5 years... and i had to work with lots of Notebooks from several brands.

If a notebook does overheat that much that it will shut down... then something is wrong (or its a VERY crappy notebook).

And notebooks are not meant to put on your legs btw...

Quote from speedfreak227 :

CSU1, next time you're taking digital pictures, turn on the option that looks like a flower. It forces your camera to focus on very close objects.

Otherwise, nice pics of crap buildup. I've pulled out some nasty dustballs from my comp's heatsink in the past too. It's long overdue for a cleaning.

speedfreak227

Oh its my cam phone nokia 6680> kind of a shitty digital camera @ 1.3 mp, but its good as a cam phone if you know what I mean

@ jibber: so where did the term/name 'Laptop' come from then?????????

Also back On topic: I think that designers of 'laptops' MUST design so:
1). They don't burn/slowly cook the users legs, by either letting hot air escape along rear of LCD screen
2). Placing the fan intake ANYWHERE other than the bottom of the box< because that just makes no sense what so ever as thats where the lap is in 'Laptop'.
3). Designing the fan system to 'reverse'/ blow outwards at certain times when there is little heat needing to be dissapated , to clean dust from back of cooling plates.... because that would just make sense

Quote from CSU1 :

@ jibber: so where did the term/name 'Laptop' come from then?????????

From end-users who didn't know better... The things are called notebooks or portable computers.

Quote :

Also back On topic: I think that designers of 'laptops' MUST design so:
1). They don't burn/slowly cook the users legs, by either letting hot air escape along rear of LCD screen
2). Placing the fan intake ANYWHERE other than the bottom of the box< because that just makes no sense what so ever as thats where the lap is in 'Laptop'.
3). Designing the fan system to 'reverse'/ blow outwards at certain times when there is little heat needing to be dissapated , to clean dust from back of cooling plates.... because that would just make sense

1. Impossible. There's no airflow underneath a notebook. The air is actually led out through the back or side. There is heat leaking through the bottom, but as long as notebooks are supposed to be flat, that will never be fixed (for less than $1000 worth of thermal plating).

2. What air intake? It's at the back or the side (other end of the exhaust, basically).

3. Cannot be done using the current architecture. Fans simply don't blow the way they suck, plus it needs to alternate the current which would short just about everything else on that part of the mainboard.

Quote from TagForce :

From end-users who didn't know better... The things are called notebooks or portable computers.




1. Impossible. There's no airflow underneath a notebook. The air is actually led out through the back or side. There is heat leaking through the bottom, but as long as notebooks are supposed to be flat, that will never be fixed (for less than $1000 worth of thermal plating).

2. What air intake? It's at the back or the side (other end of the exhaust, basically).

3. Cannot be done using the current architecture. Fans simply don't blow the way they suck, plus it needs to alternate the current which would short just about everything else on that part of the mainboard.

1). I dont understand, no airflow underneath a notebook? I own a Toshiba Equim A60, the 'intake' for the main fan is directly above my right knee which is UNDERNEATH the notebook! I know its a stupid place to put it> why not have it at the side or rear?

2). The hot air outlet is to the rear, but the intake is above knee on the underneath, which in-turn you're knee blocks the intake making everything very hot.

3) . Now c'mon "current Architecture"....lmao I think getting a fan to run backwards for a minute or two is not really the most technical of problems! lol, "short the mainboard" ... I was refering to twenty first century hardware

So what I would like too see is the intake for any fan in any notebook MUST be at a ninty degree angle to the notebook when layed down flat, and the 'exhaust' to be 'tunnelled' away from the notebooke in small channels all over the whole area of the shell, dissapating the heat evenly...I understand LCD screens work better when warm, so why not 'channel' the heat around the rear of the screen?