How to cool a laptop without bottom vents?

[Guest]

Basically, I have the HP Notebook 15 (i7), which is a great laptop. However, it usually overheats while gaming for some hours. I thought of buying a cooling pad, but I found out my laptop doesn't have bottom vents, so the cooling pad will basically just blow air into the hot plastic bottom. (please check the picture)

So, I just wanted to know where this laptop intakes are? Like, where does it take in air? There is a fan on the left side for sure, but it only releases hot air.
Also, is there any alternative for the cooling pad? I usually game with a PS3 controller, so I don't mind placing a small cooling fan over the keyboard, if that would help.

 

[Lutfij]

The intake would most probably be under your keyboard. You should feel some airflow over the keyboard during your gaming sessions. That's where it'd logically draw air from in order to expel it through the vents. Can you be a little more specific on your laptop's SKU?

If you're outside of warranty, you can look into opening the laptop and changing the thermal paste/pads used to higher quality, more higher thermally conductive thermal materials.

You could go as far as using a Dremel to cut vents where the fan is located but you're going to need to be handy with a Dremel and also know what you're doing. If you're not comfortable with this step, then forgo this line entirely!

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately, the warranty hasn't ended, yet. So I cannot do any of the previous.
If I put a fan over the keyboard while gaming, will it help push air into the inside of the laptop, so it would be cooled better?

 

[ElectrO_90]

In theory, yes, you could try and force air into every hole you can find, apart from where the hot air comes out.

You can try and do the tissue test, and see if it sucks air from anywhere specific you would see it suck it in if its powerful enough.
Lap tops are alway's weird, but also make sure it is on a hard surface when you are using it and not on a bed/soft cloth.

 

[The Paladin]

interesting I looked at 360' field of images of your laptop and can only clearly see the exhaust post on the left side, so I probed the same question on the HP support board ad was surprised to find that a lot of people are asking the same question and the answer explain the poor ventilation. and looking at the answer below, I could only suggest to add ventilation (i.e. push more air in that hole on the side would be a table to usb power fan blowing towards the laptop. to be honest its a rather poor design for ventilation.

 

[Guest]

I also thought of buying something like this one here; an exhaust cooling fan. Will it actually work?

 

[ElectrO_90]

If you are trying to cool hot air, and with anything cooling or heating it costs a lot in power. I don't see how this will help, but it is a novel idea.

 

[jsmithepa]

Open the fridge door and sit next to it when ur gaming? 😀

Seriously, with a laptop there is very little you can do, there is no room for u to add any accessory, put a bigger heatsink, a bigger fan, go water-cooled like on a desktop. If there is a clear intake, I suppose you can inject pre-cooled air into it but it seems there is no clear intake on this laptop.