Grafdude Posted July 29, 2007 Share Posted July 29, 2007 I'm looking for a laptop cooler that will make my mbp run at lower temperatures, but I'm kinda like confused with all the abundant laptop coolers that are on the market today. What I'm looking for is the cooler that has the best combination of noise/performance. I noticed that pretty much all coolers are designed for pc laptops, so is there any coolers designed for macs or pc coolers will do just fine with mac's. What caught my attention was the Pacific Breeze cooler which was highly rated by lots of people and the Antec Laptop cooler, what do ya'll think of those? One other thing that isn't clear to me is the cooling design of the mbp, I dont hear any fans spinning whatsoever, as if the laptop is passively cooled, am I right? So if no fan is present, it is best to push air to the back of the laptop's air ducts, right? Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erbic Posted July 29, 2007 Share Posted July 29, 2007 One other thing that isn't clear to me is the cooling design of the mbp, I dont hear any fans spinning whatsoever, as if the laptop is passively cooled, am I right? Um, you might want to have that checked out. The MBP has two fans, which can be heard clearly on mine (when it gets hot). A lot of PC coolers won't work as well with the MBP because of the cooling design. Most PC laptops have vents on the bottom; the MBP has one large vent right under the display hinge. You'll need to find something that can take advantage of that cooling scheme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluc Posted July 29, 2007 Share Posted July 29, 2007 I've been looking for coolers aswell and the one I find most interesting is the Zalman ZM-NC1000. It distributes air all over the lower surface of your MBP instead of focusing air into vents like the ones do that are used for most PC notebooks. I wouldn't recommend blowing or sucking air into the back vent shaft or whatever you call it since you don't want your internal fans to overwork. Cooling the lower surface is, I think, the best way to cool a MBP. And try using a graphically demanding piece of software on your MBP, you'll hear the fans clearly :censored2: EDIT: By the way, Zalman is a company that only focuses on cooling of computer parts. They are real specialists so I believe this cooler will do the trick in a very satisfying way. I need to check on some reviews tho, however I don't expect too much negativity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grafdude Posted July 30, 2007 Author Share Posted July 30, 2007 Thanks for the info, but isn't there any coolers that are specifically designed for the macbook pro, or the entire line of the macbook's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grafdude Posted July 30, 2007 Author Share Posted July 30, 2007 What do you people think about the Targus PA248U Notebook Chill Pad and the Antec USB-Powered Notebook Cooler ? Another thing that really caught my attention is Thermaltake's iXoft which is a passive pad, it look's quite interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluc Posted July 31, 2007 Share Posted July 31, 2007 I'd still go for the Zalman. As far as I can see the Targus doesn't distribute the air evenly and the passive cooling pad will help but isn't even near as effective as the others (it isn't ment to be ofcourse). The Antec does seem to distribute the air through holes but telling from the surface, in my opinion, Zalman is still the better choice. I don't think there are any coolers specifically designed for Macbooks, why would you? All notebooks have a lower surface of comparable sizes and the vent are never in the same spot, it's all meant to be universal. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grafdude Posted August 1, 2007 Author Share Posted August 1, 2007 don't think there are any coolers specifically designed for Macbooks, why would you? All notebooks have a lower surface of comparable sizes and the vent are never in the same spot, it's all meant to be universal. Good luck! That's a fact, well I guess the goal here is to find one that it's design would match the mbp's design, im a n00b with laptops (mac too) so I can't really tell what would be very well suited. The Zalman you mentioned looks like a good choice, I thinking of buying it but now I really wanna make sure I make the right choice, has anyone had any experience with this cooler? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rathalos Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 i noticed that the zalman's design is not suited to cool that of a mbp... the logic board and the really heat generating components and heat sinks are all located towards the back of the mbp, which is beyond the row of letters "z-?" on the keyboard.. effectively, if u wanna cool a mbp, u should start by thinking where is the hottest part on a mbp on use? it is the area about 5cm wide beneath the hinge... as that is where the heat sinks are located, and heat would be dissipitated thru the aluminum shell through that connection point... therefore, to effectively reduce the heat, u need to cool that portion down to allow for conduction of heat away from the heat sinks.... therefore, since there is none on the market now that does it job, i am going to build my own custom cooling pad, tacking the areas that i jus mentioned... lol.... i will test and release blueprints when i have the time to do so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluc Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 I think calling it 'not suited' isn't quite right. Also in your post you suggest there are no other coolers that do it right according to you, so the Zalman still would be your best choice considering you aren't going to build a cooler yourself. While there is conduction and airflow all around your MBP a cooler with a large area distribution of air will do a considerable amount of cooling. I'm going to buy one of these coolers whenever Apple releases new LED backlit cinema displays, until then I can't provide you with feedback. However, all the reviews I read graded this cooler between 8-10. I'm confident this will be a satisfactory choice for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dboo Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 I have owned the Zahlman for about a year and a half. I currently have the 15" 2.66 MBP (Intel Core2 Duo) and the Zahlman cooler seems to work just fine, but I have to say, this newer laptop doesn't get nearly as hot as my last one. I had the MBP 2.0Ghz (Intel Core Duo) and it would get very hot. The Zalman made a big difference on that macbook pro. I still recommend it as I had the same problem everyone else is having, there are no coolers specifically built for the MBP, but this one works pretty well and looks good doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaddaMinski Posted January 9, 2010 Share Posted January 9, 2010 The Titan Magic Pad G4 (newegg.com) has (4) fairly silent fans, aluminum bases x 2 (each side), and only draws 2 watts. Fans cannot be adjusted and mine died after 3 months. Worked very well up until then with my Macbook Core Duo when watching youtube. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meeno Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 I'm sorry to up this thread, I don't know the policy to this sort of thing on this forum, but usually I find better to reuse an existing thread than creating a new one. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know if there is a cooling pad specially for macs, i've seen one on google with the fan hole shaped like an apple, but i don't know if it was real. I too have a concern about overheating. I live in a tropical country, it's summer here, really really hot. I kinda feel sorry for my MBP. I don't own a cooling pad, and don't intend to get one because this sort of thing is really expensive here (like $70, a crappy one) and this pisses me off. I could use an external fan, but it doesn't seem to do much difference, I don't know why. CPU is at 55ºC, I'm using Safari, aMsn and iTunes. I know it's not much, but when I play games (on Win7) it gets insanely hot. The external fan doesn't seem to help much. Anybody has a good idea on where to place the fan and all? I'd appreciate that. Thank you, and please excuse my english. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoiseGUI Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 I'm sorry to up this thread, I don't know the policy to this sort of thing on this forum, but usually I find better to reuse an existing thread than creating a new one. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know if there is a cooling pad specially for macs, i've seen one on google with the fan hole shaped like an apple, but i don't know if it was real. I too have a concern about overheating. I live in a tropical country, it's summer here, really really hot. I kinda feel sorry for my MBP. I don't own a cooling pad, and don't intend to get one because this sort of thing is really expensive here (like $70, a crappy one) and this pisses me off. I could use an external fan, but it doesn't seem to do much difference, I don't know why. CPU is at 55ºC, I'm using Safari, aMsn and iTunes. I know it's not much, but when I play games (on Win7) it gets insanely hot. The external fan doesn't seem to help much. Anybody has a good idea on where to place the fan and all? I'd appreciate that. Thank you, and please excuse my english. The cheapest first step is to get a fan control program to get your fan speeds up to better handle the heat. You can customize to your noise level preference, but I generally am aggressive on keeping my laptop cooler. Mac side there is a good program called Fan Control. Bootcamp side, the only one that works consistently is Lubbo's Fan Control 0.1.9. Lubbo's warns it is not compatible with bootcamp, but if you have v3.1 or later, you can just ignore this warning and run the program anyway. The next cheapest step is to undervolt your MBP. In bootcamp this is free, but on Mac side this is done with a utility called Coolbook for found at www.coolbook.se. It's $10 USD. This will reduce your CPU temperature by 10-20 C. For me, Bootcamp runs much hotter and you can Undervolt for free using the utility called RMclock. Google the term "undervolting Guide" and I think the first link is a very good forum post going step by step on how to undervolt using this program. When gaming in windows I would get up to 108C. Now I max out at 74C. As a side benefit, Undervolting also improves battery life because you are using the minimum amount of power to run your CPU. I recommend this to everyone. I went from 4.5 hours to 6 hours battery life on my Mid-2009 Macbook Pro My undervolting on Mac side was from 1.1625 down to 0.9875 and on Boot camp it was from 1.2625 to 0.9625. Each OS is different and everyones processor is different so results may vary. Windows has numerous steps, but Coolbook points out that the two of great use are... 1. the lowest stable voltage for your top processor speed and.. 2. the highest proessor speed for your lowest available voltage. You can step in between, but for me these were neighbors (2.8 Mhz highest speed, and 2.6Mhz highest speed at the lowest voltage.) I would like additional cooling as my 17" MBP is still warmer than I'd like, so I am also looking at the Cooler Master U2 as it has a complete mesh under the underside. Can't find anything that cools the top left specifically. The Zalman ZM-NC3000U also looks like an option. Someone needs to create something specific. Business opportunity for some entrepreneur. Good luck!! Quick edit: Coolbook includes a guid for undervolting with that utility. THe windows guide, applicable to Bootcamp on Mac, can be found here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-c...ting-guide.html Coolermaster is here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002NU5V4...m=A9B09ZK9BZJQ6 Just got Luxa2 M4. Seems like it should work as good as anything and they're minimalist in nature... at Skymall.com, use coupon 'resteasy' for $10 off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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