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Laptop cooling is a kind of necessity you never want to have to use but if you do find yourself in that predicament then you could do worse than this MV Power cooler especialy for next to no money and on that note I would definitely recommend this cooler as a temporary measure. If however you are looking at protecting a laptop you are using as a desktop, you definitely will want to loosen those purse strings quite a bit more – And here is why.
First of all laptop coolers make laptops less mobile as performance degrades with internal temperature so if your laptop is getting hot and you need to use a cooler to stop it freezing – irony, then you need to start looking at why the laptop is getting hot as when you go mobile, you will still have the temperature problems. Simply put – Fix it, do you need to clean the heatsink or replace an internal fan?, because at the end of the day, it was designed to be self sufficient.
Question if you need to change the type of machine you have, Should you be using a Desktop. This is pertinent regarding Gaming, Game Development, 3D Graphics and my personal favourite – Photogrammetry (making models from photos) and Laserscan processing (LiDAR). Do you only work at a desk. If you do and you use heavy resource intensive applications with lots of graphics then get a desktop with water cooled CPU’s and GPU’s.
Do you need the full power of Microsoft Windows, You may hate me for saying it, but I love Microsoft Products because I learnt to code through their online training portal but I also love Linux and UNIX because they are open source and just work without much resource and that is why I would say question if you need that Operating System because a lighter operating system will free up resource for other tasks and the modern UBUNTU O/S are very easy to use and install standard open source software and can run from a USB Stick so no need to change the installed O/S and if you don’t like it, unplug it. A quick word of caution for those using Windows 10 Enterprise or Pro with BitLocker, make sure you have a copy of your bitlocker key before plugging anything into the USB on boot, the change in configuration will make it lock the System and you will lose all your data without a forensic de-encryption tool (Another topic to be discussed later).
Are you just trying to get a little more life out of a machine struggling to stay alive where the battery is dead, It greets you with a cough and splutter and takes 5 minutes to get to the Windows 10 logon screen – OK this article is for you because I am also that guy – long pockets and short hands.
Ok so back to this cooler, It arrived from Amazon next day which was impressive but on unboxing, I thought its quite light but when I removed it, other than the weight being less than expected for a five fan cooler, I was excited as it was nice black and shiny and reminded me of car speaker grills so nice and tactile.
It feels nice and well made but the weight was bothering me so I braced myself for a disapointment. Sure enough when I connected it up to the USB port on my laptop with the cable supplied, it rattled and had a dull humm. Now is the point to say something positive – It glows Blue around the fans which is so cool.
Ok so I now extend the tags on the front of the cooler to stop the laptop sliding off and find that my laptop is curved on the front so after about 3 hours at approx 30 degrees tilt, it slides on to the desk but thats ok as the angle support has multiple height settings and has been quite strong as I have thumped different laptops from Industrial Ruggedised Toughbooks to standard laptops several times a day for the few weeks. I will also add that the rattle has now gone and just a humm remains so maybe the build was still a little lose on my exact one.
Do remember that this is only £15 and really is doing better than I hoped but the next thing to note is that this is for upto 15″ laptops as shown below but I am optimistic that a larger laptop would be physicaly supported ok, as you can press down quite hard with your hand and it doesn’t flex.
The last remaining ting to mention is although many coolers give the impression of being blown away by having five fans for high airflow, This doesn’t as it is only USB powered ( another thing, plug it into a USB plug socket and relieve your USB BUS of the load) but what it does do is give even airflow constantly around the computer increasing airflow and thus removing the heat which in turn removes heat from central components as heat will flow to colder areas like water down a mountain.
So How did I test it to see if it was worth while. I dug out my old Samsung I7 3rd Generation which I have been using for photogrammetry. I processed approx 6000 photos with PIX4D without cooling – took 1.5 days and crashed. I then processed the same batch of Photos in a new project so there was no pre sampling and was an equal test, and all I can say is it completed in less than 12 hours as I set it off at 1800 to run overnight and by 0600 it was completed.
This is an obvious winner but as a colleague keeps reminding me, it is what it is and nothing more, It is £15 but I now have it at my work desk all the time as I think it is a benefit for all the laptops and the background office noise negates the problem with the humm. I will however be investing in a much higher spec and silent cooler for home use when I finally get my next Laptop. Yes I know I said about use a Desktop but with everything there is rational, sometimes you need to put stuff away before a Power Ranger gets stuck somewhere or it gets a drink by apparently no-one.
Anyway if you would still like one, you can find it here on Amazon
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