Antec USB-Powered Notebook Cooler
by Antec
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Antec USB-Powered Notebook Cooler
Customer Review: It's OK, but... takes rigging.
Summary: 3 Stars
I've got the same problem as every other laptop owner out there. My laptop overheats constantly. After extensive researching on the net trying to figure out which cooling pad would actually work for this desktop oven of mine, I knew that basically I was taking a shot in the dark. But this looked like a good one, so I went with it.
Pros: after fiddling with it, I did get it to work to an extent that it keeps my laptop cool for the most part... but not enough that I can freely do lots of high-level functions like media, cd burning or heavy downloading.
Cons: If your laptop runs as hot as mine, this pad BARELY will do the trick. That being said, I'm not sure that any other pad would've been any better. I'm not going by external temperature, but a temp reading from inside the computer, so external temps may be deceiving. So in any case, buying another pad might not be any better. (Then again, this is a cheap pad, so I could be wrong.) Read 'my experience' for tips on how to optimize this, and what happened when I bought mine.
My experience:
1. I use my laptop on a flat surface. This means it was getting 'proper ventilation' or room to work as it was designed to do. Placing the laptop on it with the pad going the proper direction, on a flat desk with nothing else under the pad... my laptop still hit and stayed around 100+ degrees F according to HDDlife temperature monitor. For my laptop, that was average running temp for my doing 'media' functions or downloading major files, with my laptop propped up on things to give it extra air underneath. In other words, with the pad set up normally, flat on a desktop surface... this pad had basically the same effect as propping your laptop up on a couple of books.
2. I had read some people had luck with this pad after re-situating the pad under their laptop. This is common sense, I guess, but it's NOT what apparently the designers of the pad had in mind. MAJOR ADVICE... look at the fans... look at your air vents... Situate the pad's fans as directly under your air vents as possible. This SHOULD increase the pad's effectiveness, even if it's obviously not what the manufacturer had in mind. (BE WARNED... some laptops, I understand, intake air from the bottom [?] I can't confirm this but, I read online that this was the case ... so before buying, make sure you have a laptop that does not intake air from the bottom, or this device will be working against your laptop and not with it.
3. After repositioning the pad, it ran a tiny bit cooler, but still nothing at all what I needed.
4. Finally, I propped the pad up on for little wooden craft boxes which are a bit larger than the feet of the pad area wise, and about 2 inches tall, making a kind of 'cave' underneath my laptop and giving it some serious height. (Which I didn't mind at all, because frankly, looking at the bottom of my screen for certain things all the time was starting to give me neck problems. So my screen is actually somewhere near a good level now for comfortable use. An added plus. lol)
5) With this pad pointed directly at my laptop's bottom air vents, and propped up about 2 inches on the wooden craft boxes... I finally got decent cooling with this pad. My average temp for minimum use is in the 80 degree range, going into the 90s if I have a lot of minimum use operations running at once. With demanding use, it creeps up into the 100-110 degree bracket. According to the program I've got, my laptop hits "self destruct" temps at around 127 degrees. So 110 degrees is NOT good. But it's better than the 117 or so my laptop used to hit pretty quickly when I asked too much of it before. HOWEVER... when I have lower usage, the temp actually drops, and fairly quickly, and sometimes even gets back into the 70s. Without this pad, my laptop stayed roughly in the 90's bracket no matter what I was doing, and would overheat after a couple hours of even low end usage on occasion.
BOTTOM LINE:
So the good news is, if you're poor, you can rig this machine to do what you need it to do, BUT... while my average running temp is now comfortably below even my minimum-usage temp was before, even with some heightened use, it still will overheat if I do too much heavy downloading or demanding game play. (We're talking those online MMORPGs with 2d graphics... it still overheats, going into the 110 bracket...)
The major disappointment for me was, when I got it and looked at it, finding out that all those little black dots on it are NOT holes. The reason I bought this pad, was because I thought they were, and I was thinking, "gee, even if the fans aren't blowing right on it, this would be giving it major ventilation!" ... No such luck, people. The black dots are solid plastic, not holes. So if you're thinking this pad will give your laptop's normal exhaust fan more room to breathe, it won't. On the other hand, this is true of pretty much all cooling pads I've seen. (Not a lot of room for the laptop's natural fan to do it's business, as is the case when you set it on a hard, flat surface.)
Finally, the next and last con (besides that it didn't cool as much as I would have liked), is that the cable for it is really, really short. I would have rather had a power cord to deal with than a super-short usb plug, but... then again I do most of my business on a table near an outlet. So that's just me.
SO, I'd say this pad probably isn't much better or worse than any other. Ultimately it can work to an extent that will allow you to do more with less heat, but... it won't keep your machine cool when you're playing those awesome 3d games on it. (Again, I'm going by internal rather than external temperatures.) You might want to find something to prop it up on (something a bit bigger than the pad's feet, that will give it at least an inch or two of breathing room underneath, and sturdy enough to hold the laptop and pad, and which you have 4 of. ^_^) I don't play many games, so this pad is pretty much good enough for me the way I have it set up now. If you're a gamer, you might want to look into a high end pad with rave reviews from other hard-core gamers.
It's OK... but don't expect to run your computer full throttle for a long time and keep temps under 110 degrees, no matter what you prop it up on.
Customer Review: Antec USB-Powered Notebook Cooler Gets Wavey Davey's 5-Star Award!
Summary: 5 Stars
Buying one of the Antec USB-Powered Notebook Coolers is an easy choice, out of the many and sundry choices available here and elsewhere. I think that most of the other reviewers here have covered the key points well, and I see no reason to go back over and re-hash everything that has been said before, so I'm going to make this review short, and sweet, with some personal-use caveats thrown into the mix.
Let's be honest about this now, because we are all here to get the best deal on the best quality for our hard earned $$'s, aren't we? Well, look no further than this great performing notebook cooler by Antec. When you can pay at or about $25 shipped for a cooler that does its job silently, surely, and *safely* in terms of isolating the notebook's heat away from our legs, laps, and thighs, then that's a bargain to be taken advantage of, right?
I think so, and add to it these personally noted plusses++ for the Antec USB-Powered Notebook Cooler and we have Wavey Davey's 5-Star Performance Award, earned again in the heat of competition with all those other pricey, and dicey coolers by other manufacturers.
First, the design is KUHL, isn't it? I like the "Star-Design" with the strong, but light ABS plastic (mine are in black and silver) bottom which cradles the aluminum alloy top conductive surface area, the part that actually touches the notebook. And you want that part to be metal if possible, because its convective ability is superior to plastic or coated cardboard, whatever those other notebook coolers are using: the Antec's construction is superior to the other coolers for sale here and elsewhere.
Next, the fans are double-ball bearing fans and they are dead-on next to silent at a rated 27dB (decibels) noise factor, which is minimal, and XLNT at best. Those fans move a LOT of air through and around the bottom vents of your average notebook, and pass it out through the sides where most notebooks have their exhaust vents. The fans have a High and Low switch which is nice, but through my uses this past year with two very different notebooks, one a newer Sony FW-series and the other being an Acer 5920-series, I've just left the switch on "Low" and it does the job virtually silently.
There's a very, very bright Blue LED near the fan switch on the right side for the tell-tale "I'm working and ON" sign, and most people probably consider that LED waaay too bright, and it is! The only real detraction to an otherwise stellar design concept is that LED, and it's so bright that it will pierce a room's dark, and silent night and light it up a bit! So I've taken a piece of black electrical tape and taped over both of the LED's on our coolers, and it solved that small problem.
The fans do accumulate a good portion of dust and dirt if you are leaving the cooler on 24/7 as we do ours, so a simple removal to the outside/garage area, and a blast from your air compressor (if you have such a device, and I do) will blow all that away for another go at cooling effectively and efficiently. I clean our two coolers monthly, as they are on 24/7, literally all the time, because both notebooks are doing Folding@Home for Stanford University when they aren't being used for normal things, so the coolers have been getting a good workout at our place.
There's a substantial warranty in place with the Antec Notebook Cooler also, as I recall it's a 3-year factory warranty-- so even if you manage to burn it out and use it up in that time Antec will replace one if it fails under warranty. That's another positive point to be made versus the other coolers here at Amazon and elsewhere.
In closing, because I promised to make this a short and sweet review, I feel very good about purchasing two notebook coolers of such high quality and excellent design and functionality for about $50, getting one on sale here for less than $25 and the other one for just more than $25. I just do not think there's anything else for sale that works as well, costs so little, and has a great 3-year warranty from the manufacturer to back it up should anything go wrong in 3 long, hard years of notebook cooling service!
This is the unit to get, and I wholeheartedly endorse the Antec USB-Powered Notebook Cooler 100% across the board. I'm giving it Wavey Davey's 5-Star Seal of Excellence! You just cannot go wrong with one of these at or about $25 shipped, so forget the rest, this is the best!
Wavey Davey 8-14-2009
Customer Review: Lasted five months
Summary: 5 Stars
My old review follows below. Five months have passed. The device is now making a loud noise. Probably the bearings are wearing out and one of the fans is probably wobbling. Up to this point, it worked fine. See my old review. I stand by that, up the point of failure. However five months of use before a failure is troubling. I would estimate that during those five months, the unit was in use an average of at least 6 hours per day, so the time to failure was probably just over 1000 hours. This is probably too short for me to justify buying another of this same model. All of these devices appear to be cheaply made, and are not costly, so I'm not sure what to expect from another manufacturer. Maybe five months is typical?
I purchased this before reading any of the reviews, and then after it seemed to perform quite well, read some of the positive and negative reviews. The vacuum issue of many of the negative reviews makes sense, and I wondered about this myself when I first operated the unit. The bottom line is that this unit works well for my computer, a DELL Precision M6300. I haven't noticed the vacuum issue with my computer. Keep in mind that it overhangs all the way around. Also, I use the four rubber feet on the top of the platform to ensure 1/4" clearance under my laptop. I think if one doesn't use these rubber feet (you have to install them yourself; very easy) then there might not be enough clearance and the vacuum created by the Antec might conflict with the computer's own fans. For my computer, the fans draw air in from the bottom, but along the rear sides of the computer which are overhanding the sides and back of the Antec, so they probably can never be in conflict with the Antec's fans. Frankly, this configuration probably ensures that the Antec fans and DELL M6300 fans work to help each other. Also, the little rubber feet seem to ensure that my computer doesn't slide around; it is firmly located on the Antec. Another issue others have commented about is the poor connectivity of the USB connection. I haven't seen any problem whatsoever with this. Keep in mind that I don't need to use the pass-thru to access other USB devices. My computer has six USB ports, so once the Antec USB is plugged in, I don't need to fool with it, and that might help avoid connection problems. I find the two speed settings useful. When I do heavy duty number crunching I swtich to the high speed setting, and this seems take more of the thermal load off the computer and my internal fans slow down. I have one criticism of the speed switch. It is located so close to the USB cable connection on the Antec, that it is a little difficult to reach around and move the switch to change speed settings on the fan. The other thing about this unit is that is really just for flat surface use, not lap use. It you do mostly lap work with your laptop, this may not be the best unit for you. Final conclusions: While I appreciate the criticisms of others, my guess is that some of what they experienced may be laptop dependent. My laptop works well with this unit, and after frying another DELL workstation notebook computer because of overheating, I am satisfied that this product will protect my now even more expensive replacment laptop.
Customer Review: Perfect Match for IBM / Lenovo - with noise now, though
Summary: 4 Stars
UPDATE 10/20/08: The Antec cooler is still keeping my IBM nice and cool but it has developed some irritating noise. It appears that the fairly inexpensive plastic and thin metal top have separated enough that the fans cause vibrations that in turn generate unwanted noise. Push your finger down on the top and the noise goes away. So maybe a bit of epoxy or other goop will reseal things and damp the noise (hopefully without killing the fan!). I can live with it as is, but it is nothing like the quiet unit that came out of the box!
I have an IBM T42p with maxed out memory and graphics. In other words, it runs HOT! So hot that I had the motherboard serviced by IBM twice in 3 years (under warranty, thankfully!) and recently had the fan fail (not under warranty). This while the unit was not being used for days at a time and with the laptop angled to allow ventilation when on. After reading far too many reviews on the endless laptop coolers out there, I picked up this Antec and it is like it was made for my unit.
Pros:
* As noted above, it fits the T42p like a glove. Put the rubber feet in place and the IBM sits 1/4" above the aluminum surface and you can just see the outline of the Antec under the laptop. (The T422p is a traditional 15" screen, not a widescreen design.)
* Quiet: Do you know it is on? Yes, but that is okay. The fan noise is not obtrusive, even if you turn it to high.
* Effective: The T42p exhaust is out the left side of the keyboard area and historically, the laptop fan exhausted air that was very hot to the touch, even if the laptop were not actively processing anything. Now, I can have multiple programs loaded, actively run numerous programs simultaneously and the exhaust temp is subjectively about half the temp it was before the Antec. I do not have specific data of the precise temperatures, but I can say that I have never felt the exhaust temp this low ever. One one occasion, I intentionally ran two high CPU usage scans simultaneously, insuring that the CPU and HD were running almost maxed out. I did switch to the high fan speed, but at no time did the unit feel any warmer than normal. It just seems to work.
Cons:
* I have put tape over the blue LED. Blinding otherwise!
* Not so much of a con, but it would have been nice if Antec had built in a small piece of software that automatically switched the fan speed if needed. Not that I have used the higher fan speed other than my intentional scans noted above, but it would be nice.
* I would have preferred a couple of USB ports on the Antec body rather than the one that is integrated in the USB cord. The T42p only has two USB ports to begin with, one of which has my Logitech Nano receiver occupying it. So while the Antec gives back the one port it uses, having a few extra USBs would have been a nicer solution.
Overall, for the price I have to say that this is a winner. I do not use the Antec portably - my T42p is a desktop replacement that occasionally goes portable. But given my usage needs, this simply works. And more importantly, it seems to let my IBM work without fear of frying!
Customer Review: Works/cools well, but don't expect too much
Summary: 4 Stars
Well, I'm not entirely sold that a laptop cooler is the end all to laptop heat problems.... That being said, I'm very happy with my purchase of this. I have a Dell E1505 and it runs pretty hot (50-65'C), without any forced temperature control. I however began using I8kfanGUI a while ago (progam specific to dell to control the interal fan speeds) and forced my CPU temp to stay around 35'C. This meant my computer fan was on slow most of the time. Since buying the Antec cooler my internal fan rarely comes on and goes off rather quickly.
The cooler lowered my hard drive, memory, and gpu temperature all between 5-10'C because they still ran hot just with internal fan control. Now everything (except the GPU which is normally hotter) holds a little below 40'C with normal usage (browsing, word, etc.) and goes up to a little less than 50'C if I play a newer game or something graphically intense for a long time. Since I bought the cooler the bottom of my laptop has never been warm to the touch (used to feel like it could singe my leg hairs off if I left it on my lap for too long), actually it always is a bit cool now. The pass-through usb is nice as you don't lose a port as well. Also, this is one of the few coolers in this price range that uses aluminum instead of plastic, which makes it a much better heat sink.
The main thing I don't like is they put the usb-cord on the left side of the cooler and on my computer the usb ports are back right and the right side. So I have to turn it around and get a breeze of air on me instead of away from me. I read a few reviews about it being too loud or not having automatic temperature control. Overall it's pretty quiet and if you have any other ambient noise around you it's hardly noticable. My internal fan is louder by itself than this is. As for automatic control, you're just not going to get a feature like that for something in the $20-$30 range. Although, it would be nice to have the option. My final complaint is that since it is USB powered (which most of these are and it still confuses me...) it draws power through the motherboard and in turn creates heat inside. When I leave it on high, the temp actually increases!!! Thankfully low speed is more than adequate and does not draw much power. Don't expect dramatic results from this, but definately worth the buy if your laptop runs a bit too warm.
*Originally was a 4 star, but now a 5. I figured out a way to make the USB cord reach the ports so I don't have to flip it, so one complaint gone, and after about a month now I couldn't be happier. Plus I found out there's a 3 year warranty included. Highly recomended!