[Hornet]

I had this idea today, when I was contemplating buying a really overly hot eventual/possibly/dreamy powerbook G5... What about some kind of heatpad, about an A4 page in size, that you place the laptop on. OK so imagine something maybe a centimeter thick tops. The goal of this pad, would primarily be to dissapate coolness up into the laptop, and second (if possible) to take the heat dispersed down by the laptop and pump it out.

So I was thinking of some electrical cooling system, maybe liquid pipes around the pad, with some small tiny pump and cooler integrated into the unit. Basically the base of the laptop would be cool when sitting on this pad. My Ti heats up my wooden desk a lot when it sits on it, so I get the feeling if there was a nice cool flow coming from underneath, it might stop the heat being as high, and triggering the damn fans (sorry, my fans just turned on. grr).

Anyhow, any ideas? Any kind of pad that kept itself cool and hence whats on top of it cool

[shabbasuraj]

Liquid cooling would be nice. As for a fan moving air underneath there are a whole slew of products that are already available.

The first one that comes to mind...

[jpg71]

There are many fan-operated notebook cooling pads available for under $20 that take power from your USB port and even provide up to four more USB 2.0 ports as a hub.

Here's a cooling pad that doesn't use fans, but uses "heat pipes" instead:

http://www.xpcgear.com/notebookcooler.html

Edit: Found a Google Answer that provides a ton of links:

http://www.google.com/answers/threadview?id=377529

[gobears]

hehe careful using the term "coolpad" - I think it's trademarked by Targus/RoadTools

[Charles Bouldin]

Originally posted by Hornet:
I had this idea today, when I was contemplating buying a really overly hot eventual/possibly/dreamy powerbook G5... What about some kind of heatpad, about an A4 page in size, that you place the laptop on. OK so imagine something maybe a centimeter thick tops. The goal of this pad, would primarily be to dissapate coolness up into the laptop, and second (if possible) to take the heat dispersed down by the laptop and pump it out.

So I was thinking of some electrical cooling system, maybe liquid pipes around the pad, with some small tiny pump and cooler integrated into the unit. Basically the base of the laptop would be cool when sitting on this pad. My Ti heats up my wooden desk a lot when it sits on it, so I get the feeling if there was a nice cool flow coming from underneath, it might stop the heat being as high, and triggering the damn fans (sorry, my fans just turned on. grr).

Anyhow, any ideas? Any kind of pad that kept itself cool and hence whats on top of it cool

Somethng like this exists:

http://www.climator.com/passivecooling.html

I have two of these things and they work well. There is a pdf file at the link that explains in great detail how this works. Basically, this a pad filled with a water/salt solution that "melts" at about 85 F. As it melts, it soaks up heat from the laptop. When the laptop sleeps or generates little heat, the pad refreezes. This means that the process has a limit; once the salt has melted (takes ~2 hours) there is no more cooling capacity. Refreezing takes several hours. However, the good news is that this is a toally passive and silent system.

[uberwrensch]

I had thought of getting the LapTopCooler "pad" before, but never did since there was no readily apparent US distributor.

Anyway, thanks to this thread it got me thinking about a true on-lap solution--I've made do with cutting boards, foldable in-bed dinner trays, etc., but nothing that suited perfectly. So, yesterday I sprung for one of Rain Design's iLap that's listed in the google search link jpg71 provided. Should receive it today, since we're both in the San Fran. area.

Uber

[Hornet]

Wow how interesting! OK so anyone who has these products, how effective are they? My Ti now on this wooden desk seems to turn on its medium volume fans just for the sake of it now, because it sits on a warm desk - its doing next to nothing...

I'd love a totally silent solution. Even if it just lasted 2 hours, that would be interesting. But if it kept going continually and actually had a good effect - great!

Wonder if there is an AU distributor for this stuff hmm.

[wilsonng]

At my office and my home desk, I use an iLap. It is probably overkill but I sometimes turn on my small desk fan on low and point it at the laptop.

I've also had my PB resting on top of a RoadTools CoolPad and then pointing the desk fan at it as well.

I think someone else mentioned cutting down a tile of marble or granite and using that to dissipate heat. That was the lowest cost, lowest tech solution yet.

[jpg71]

If you've got one of those AirBake aluminum cookie sheets, I've heard they work great.

There's one with dimensions of 14x9-1/2" which is almost a perfect match for the 15" AlBook!