Laptop cooling pads

[Hawkwings]

So I've been concerned that my laptop runs pretty hot. I've had it suddenly power off when I'm playing certain games, and even when I just have a bunch of tabs open, watching a movie or video, it'll get up to 80 degrees C (CPU temperature). It'll idle at around 55-60C as well. I'm going to dust out the internals tomorrow and see if that does anything but I'd also like to look into getting a cooling pad.

Of course, there are a million models out there, of varying effectiveness. Anyone have experience with these things, and can give advice or recommendations?

[Starglider]

If you laptop is hot to the touch, be sure to remove the battery when you are gaming on wall power. The biggest determining factor for the lifespan of lithium batteries, assuming you don't under or over charge them, is mean temperature.

Also obviously check that the vents on any cooling pad you buy are aligned with the intakes on the underside of your laptop, otherwise it will be a noisy paperweight.

[Zixinus]

To a point, there is no way around it: you have the internals of a computer that otherwise has the house two or three or more the size of the laptop itself. Heat is concentrated and has a difficult time getting out.

Also, while this too has little to do with cooling pads (I already have enough junk that I want to carry around with my laptop) here is a small hint: try to reduce power consumption to reduce heat. Reduce screen brightness, switch to earphones instead of using speakers, turn off wi-fi and bluetooth when not using it, etc. Stuff like that can help.

[Edi]

Update the laptop BIOS to the latest version. Sometimes the fans don't work properly without a BIOS upgrade and there could be other stuff directly related to power consumption as well.

Make sure you're not running the laptop on a tablecloth but on a bare table, otherwise airflow (such as it is) is hampered and the vent grilles may be covered and choked.

[Starglider]

Reduce screen brightness, switch to earphones instead of using speakers, turn off wi-fi and bluetooth when not using it, etc. Stuff like that can help.

That can help with battery life but it won't make any difference to the temperature of the CPU/GPU etc when running on wall power, because those components are thermally well insulated form the hot spots (the screen is its own separate radiator) and on AC power the waste heat from the battery isn't relevant. It might make the power brick run a little cooler, but not enough that you'd notice it without a thermometer.

My main laptop was specially modified by the notebook builder with taller machined aluminium feet, and it makes a huge difference to airflow and temperatures vs the standard version of the same machine (OCZ Whitebook). It won't be quite at neat, but you could buy off the shelf ones and stick them on with epoxy glue.

[Zaune]

How long have you had the laptop, by the way? The fans and the heat sink need cleaning at least once a year or so.

[Hawkwings]

I've had the laptop for just under a year. I opened it up last night and checked, it's pretty damn clean inside, surprisingly. Still, I vacuumed it out and it does appear to be cooling better, it's at 57C right now when before it probably would have been around 62.

I just ran it on external power for a couple hours at an average CPU temp of 83C or so, and the battery is barely warm.

For reference, it's a Toshiba Satellite A665.

[Jiskimsta]

I'm using Belkin's laptop cooler. Apparently, it's the one with the most cooling power according to them. This is my 3rd laptop cooler and I'd have to agree if I have to compare all three.