Discussion Thread: Heat Tolerance and Heat Prevention in Laptops

[Graybush]

So we can all agree that heat can be bad for our gadgets. If a laptop is too hot then BOOM. It's a goner.

Okay, my image might be exaggerating. Either way, we don't want to see our valuables fail because of poor ventilation or overheating.

How do you handle heating in your laptops? Do you prefer to sit them on specific surfaces or a cooling pad? Do you like opening their cases and work on the thermal paste?

Since I only use a laptop for work I prefer to keep mine on a cool, wooden surface. Personal experience has taught me that A: stainless steal surfaces are cool, but also transfer lots of heat and B: I probably shouldn't have a laptop in a machine shop.

Let us know your experiences with keeping laptops cool!

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

I've got an Acer Predator Helios 300 with the 7700HQ and the 1060 6GB. I was having thermal throttling issues with the thing sitting on a metal mesh monitor stand and the fans cranked.

I tried undervolting the CPU to control temps, but it didn't work so well for me. So, I ended up taking it apart and doing a thermal paste replacement on it. It was like a blind person applied the original thermal paste, there was too much and it was poorly distributed. I used Arctic Silver 5 on both the CPU and GPU, but kept the VRAM thermal pads. It worked really well. I went from pretty hard thermal throttling to not throttling at all in games and only a 2-5% thermal throttling under heavy synthetic testing. It still runs warm, but I can use it flat on the desk (how I always use it anyways), or even on my lap or bed.

I'm considering going the liquid metal route and stripping the paint off the heat pipes to get it even cooler, but those are ideas for when I'm bored or I run into problems at a later date. For now I've got a laptop with good enough thermal performance to run the GTX 1060 6GB at stock desktop speeds and I'm pretty happy with that.

 

[Guest]

My son has an Alienware Laptop and he doesn't like the heat on his legs when he plays. He got himself a cooling table so he can sit his laptop on it while playing.

Personally I don't do a lot of heavy lifting on my laptop, but I inherited an old desk with a marble top on it and it keeps everything nice and cool. Not my favorite thing in the winter though...

 

[James Mason]

Cooling pads aren't really necessary, just a simple mesh or ventilated laptop stand, so the laptop is off the table/desk/bed and the fans on the bottom can get air works wonders.