My Toshiba a200 has a tendancy to get really really hot. If your Toshiba Satelite is an a200, Do not think about taking it apart. You WILL end up with more screws then you started with. Toshiba are not the best at constructing a diy laptop. For rip apart-ability, i recommend Asus.

After simply elevating the back of the notebook 1 inch off the table surface I was able to reduce the temp to 75C.

In this case I think creating air space for the fans/vents under the notebook is effective enough and would recommend prioritizing this over a cooler, especially one that offers no extra gap between the notebook and the surface.

That being said I am currently in the process of finding a quality cooler that will do both.

(Thanks for the experiment and report Marc. -PZ)

A hard surface or cooler tablet is a definate good choice.
Frank n St31n

Remember, Fans do NOT cool. All they do is move air. What any ■cooler■ is doing is just moving heated air from the source and allowing it to be replaced by air at an ambient temperature. (I am excluding from this any refrigerating cooler to avoid unnecessary comment)
What this means is, the higher the ambient temperature, the less efficient your ■cooler■ will be, and, for any ■cooler■ to work it must be able to draw the heated air from the laptop and exhaust it adequately to atmosphere.
In answer to the specific question, Yes, If the ambient temperature is less than the laptop AND the ■cooler■ has an induction port in proximity to the laptop vents AND the ■cooler■ airspeed is greater than the laptop airspeed the ■Cooler■ should allow the laptop to run at a lower temperature.
Whether it■s worthwhile, economic or practical; your choice.

(Good tips. -PZ)

(Keep the gutter language at your place please Ushan. -PZ)

(But more to the point, as long as the notebook isn't overheating. -PZ)

I got one for 12 bucks at a Radioshack because of ones they had left over from black friday. I am very pleased with the result for the money. It is sturdy and I can notice a difference.

I would say it is worth it, Unless you are doing hardcore gaming don't feel that you have to spend an arm and a leg on a cooler.

I have an Antec cooler, old model, it blows air down ( not the sides as new model does). It is a great help with my old laptop wich has its own fan intake by the side, but not much of help with new laptop with fan intake at the bottom: it seems hot air is taken in, and running the cooler fan does not help, indeed chipset heat goes up by 1 or 2 Celsius deegres !! Laptops should be designed with fan intake on the sides, not at the bottom.

It's called WD40, is your laptop still under warranty? If not take the bottom panel off, remove the sticker on top of the fan and try and Jerry the fan housing plug off, put a DROP of WD40 in there, just a drop, lube the fan (move it around) then add another drop, while your at it, dust off your heatsinks.

(Hi Jason. As far as I know all those WD spray products evapotrate without leaving anything behind. That is, they act as a lubricant for a while, but soon they're all gone and you're back to where you were. That's why they're called Water Displacement sprays. -PZ)

One solution IS consistent, raise the laptop up so air passes under it. And, the cooling fans in the laptop coolers have a limit--and since they are designed to push air up and out UNDER the laptop, the fans must be close to the bottom of the laptop.

Possible design: Make use of the "Northbridge" pure cooper passive heat-transfer heat sinks, e.g., or CPU heat sinks [see, e.g., Enzotech Pure Copper Heat Sinks] or even CPU Heat sinks with fans inside the copper heatsinks. Have the copper material come in direct contact with the base of the laptop that is hottest, or other areas that produce heat--and draw away heat, have the fans further blow the heat away. These heatsinks can raise the laptop up so air circulate underneath. Any laptop coolers with their fans might do this just as well. Use these copper coolers seated on these laptop coolers now made, and let the copper heat sinks draw the heat away from laptop base, therefore, CPU, etc.

Something in this general design might be more efficient, COMBINING use of air flow, heat conduction through copper, and keeping the laptop base cooler on the lap. Laptop can still be tilted for best keyboard position.

First I thought it was spyware killing the machine. It seemed as though there was no method to its madness as to when it turned itself off. Sometimes whenI was doing nothing but reading email and something when a specific action took place like me starting an audio or video.

I decided to restore the laptop to original settings and this took a while as it kept crashing.

Then it seemed like it wouldn't crash any more(maybe I was in an air conditioned room) and then bam the same crap over and over.

So today I decided I would try to blow out the dust off the fans and the heat sink( I guess that is what the little copper wirey looking thing in the back is).

Well it has been working good so far and I added a chillmat just for good measure.

It has been running for an hour so far. Also I found a setting in the toshiba power manager that I swear I set to max performance. but it was set to silent mode. This basically controls how much the fan runs and I wll see when I restart the computer if it defaults back to silent mode.

BTW, when I blew the dust out there was MUCH more than I could see by lookin into the laptop. I would blow it out and it looked clean. I blew it out again and more dust flew out. Did it about 3 times before I didn't see dust coming out anymore.

Hope this helps me and readers that follow.

just put sumthing under the back lip to tilt it up and foward and ur set! works a treat

but during this hot spell, iv been playnig games in a cooler room with a fan rite infront of me (behind the laptop) more to keep me cool, but i found it also kept the laptop running at like50 degrees rather than 70+...(even though 70 is quite safe) just a thought i spose

jono