Testing and Conclusion
Testing was conducted with a HP dv9000 laptop, running Windows 7 Ultimate edition. As this thing already has fairly pitiful battery life, all testing was done with the system plugged into the wall. Temperatures were read with the onboard sensors, via CPUID’s helpful HWMonitor program. Temperatures were taken immediately after booting into Windows from a cold power-off, after sitting idle for 30 minutes, and again after 30 minutes of heated (heh heh) gameplay in Team Fortress 2.
CPU temperatures showed a significant drop with the Aeolus over simply leaving the laptop on the desk, but the fan seemed to have no effect one way or another.
GPU temperatures showed a less dramatic response, though again the fan had no effect.
Ambient case temperatures did nothing to buck the trend, with the fan once again proving ineffective.
Conclusion
Laptop computers are one of the trickiest balancing acts in computing, with concerns of power consumption and heat output weighed against computing performance, all in a thin slab of metal, glass and plastic. While laptops have evolved considerably over the 20+ years that they’ve been available, the need for cooling them hasn’t changed. The purpose of purchasing a laptop cooler, instead of a ring binder or other inert wedge, is to provide active airflow to the parts of a laptop that need it most. As these results show, the Enermax Aeolus is almost completely ineffective at this task. While it makes for a fairly attractive laptop stand, we cannot recommend it for any system that requires serious assistance with cooling.
The Enermax device is good but check this new device they have come out with – useful to anyone using a laptop / macbook for prolonged periods http://www.laptopcoolerncomfortpad.com. Thanks