Question Just would like confirmed that this idea of mine would not work...

[|galen|]

Hi,

I had the idea to make like an "ice-pack lattice" and then place a fan underneath it and place both underneath a stand upon which the laptop would sit. I guess that it would just wreck the laptop because of condensation, but what do you think?

Here is an Imgur link for a JPEG that shows three different angles of the design (sorry, couldn't figure out how to attach the picture here otherwise).

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

If you intend to add moisture/humidity to your laptop to cause a short or mishap in your laptop, then yes it's a good idea. Outside of that no, it's not something worth doing at all.

What is the make and model of your laptop?

If you want to drop temps, you can do a couple of things;
a| Change the thermal paste and pads in the laptop out for higher quality ones.
b| Clean the internals and vents off of dirt/debris/lint.
c| Undervolt
d| Raise the rear of your laptop with an eraser or a sharpie to assist in the laptops fan drawing in cooler ambient air through tot he vents.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I had the idea to make like an "ice-pack lattice" and then place a fan underneath it and place both underneath a stand upon which the laptop would sit. I guess that it would just wreck the laptop because of condensation, but what do you think?

It's called - laptop cooling pad. Just without ice packs.
And yes - ice packs will probably cause condensation.

 

[geofelt]

Confirmation will come if you try it.
I would not.

I see many complaints about gaming laptops not performing well.
Usually gaming while plugged in.
One common cause is thermal throttling.
Laptop coolers must, of necessity be small and light.
The coolers are also relatively underpowered.
If you run an app such as HWMonitor or HWinfo, you will get the current, minimum, and maximum cpu temperatures. Set to see each individual core.
For intel processors, if you see a max of 100c. in red, it means you have throttled.
I think the number for ryzen is more like 85c-90c.
The cpu will lower it's multiplier and power draw to protect itself until the situation reverses.
At a lower multiplier, your cpu usage may well be at 100%
What can you do?
First, see that your cooler airways are clear and that the cooler fan is spinning.
Use a windows balanced power profile, not the performance profile.
Set a minimum cpu performance to something like 20%

It is counter-intuitive, but, try changing the windows balanced power profile advanced functions to a max of 90% instead of the default of 100%
You may not notice the reduced cpu performance.

 

[|galen|]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

If you intend to add moisture/humidity to your laptop to cause a short or mishap in your laptop, then yes it's a good idea. Outside of that no, it's not something worth doing at all.

What is the make and model of your laptop?

If you want to drop temps, you can do a couple of things;
a| Change the thermal paste and pads in the laptop out for higher quality ones.
b| Clean the internals and vents off of dirt/debris/lint.
c| Undervolt
d| Raise the rear of your laptop with an eraser or a sharpie to assist in the laptops fan drawing in cooler ambient air through tot he vents.

Thanks for your help there.

 

[|galen|]

Confirmation will come if you try it.
I would not.

I see many complaints about gaming laptops not performing well.
Usually gaming while plugged in.
One common cause is thermal throttling.
Laptop coolers must, of necessity be small and light.
The coolers are also relatively underpowered.
If you run an app such as HWMonitor or HWinfo, you will get the current, minimum, and maximum cpu temperatures. Set to see each individual core.
For intel processors, if you see a max of 100c. in red, it means you have throttled.
I think the number for ryzen is more like 85c-90c.
The cpu will lower it's multiplier and power draw to protect itself until the situation reverses.
At a lower multiplier, your cpu usage may well be at 100%
What can you do?
First, see that your cooler airways are clear and that the cooler fan is spinning.
Use a windows balanced power profile, not the performance profile.
Set a minimum cpu performance to something like 20%

It is counter-intuitive, but, try changing the windows balanced power profile advanced functions to a max of 90% instead of the default of 100%
You may not notice the reduced cpu performance.

Thank you for all that, that'll be very helpful actually. So I shouldn't worry about seeing 100*C temps in my Intel CPU cores then, such as happens when exporting in video-editing software, exporting an Audacity file, or even doing Batch Image Manipulation in GIMP? those CPUs are designed to reach that temperature and then to throttle-down so that they don't go any higher than that? It's just there seems to be a lot of conflicting info on the topic across the internet...

Sitting it on top of an upside-down, oblong-shaped, wire-frame basket, and then treating it essentially as a desktop machine, helped a lot actually.

 

[|galen|]

To anyone who comes in the future that may have the same idea, I can't think of any way to obviate the risk of moisture with this. Can't think of anyway you could either absorb the moisture on its way upwards without ending up with saw-dust in your laptop etc.; nor can I think how to draw the moisture away without also drawing away the cold-air afforded by the ice-packs in the first-place. Oh well.

 

[Paperdoc]

The idea has some merit, but it combines TWO ideas, and of those only ONE can work safely. Having a fan system to blow just room air up onto the bottom of the laptop will remove more heat, and that is what commonly-sold Laptop Cooling Pads do. Addition of ice (or any other really cold thing) in the air path will increase heat removal, but certainly WILL cause condensation of liquid water and thus MAJOR trouble!

 

[geofelt]

In the summer, turn up the cooling on the Air conditioner.
In the winter, open up the window a bit.

 

[|galen|]

The idea has some merit, but it combines TWO ideas, and of those only ONE can work safely. Having a fan system to blow just room air up onto the bottom of the laptop will remove more heat, and that is what commonly-sold Laptop Cooling Pads do. Addition of ice (or any other really cold thing) in the air path will increase heat removal, but certainly WILL cause condensation of liquid water and thus MAJOR trouble!

I thought as much, thanks.