TECKNETLaptop Cooling Pad, 12"-16" Laptop Cooler with 2 Quiet Fans, Ergonomic Comfort Gaming Laptop Cooling Stand, Speed Adjustable Cooling Pad

Not too sure why I am updating this - not even sure it's still available but going through my profile came across this review from 6 years ago! (I write in June 2023). The amazing thing is I am updating it using my Alienware laptop which is on my lap, been kept cool by the same cooling fan! Its a little battery now, and taken apart completely, any easy matter, once or twice to fully clean the fans. Fantastic piece of kit. Good company.Excellent piece of kit. I have an old Dell, 6420 I5. A workhorse and still going strong. However, like a number of Dell laptops, it can get pretty hot. But no longer with this cooling pad. I am one of those strange creatures that actually use their laptop on their laps - I have the heat marks on my thighs to show for it. Thus, I was looking for something small and light. with only the tiniest of forwarding tilts. This thing ticks all of these as you can see in the pictures. More importantly, it works and works well. In addition, it is incredibly quiet, incredibly so, Yes, you can hear the fans in a very quiet room, but only just. It is USB powered, however, it has another USB in/out port at the back which means you don't lose a port. on your laptop. Handy. Not sure what the none slip material is but it works very well.One thing though, my laptop is 14.5 inches .and fits perfectly side to side. A larger laptop would sit slightly over the edge at either side. Not a major issue but one you should be aware of. From back to front, however, there is about two inches of free space. And odd design decision but in no way problematic.I noted a few reviewers commented on the smell that they found it had - a plastic smell, I am very sensitive to smells and have not noticed this, Unsure if it was a previous bad batch or they have changed the design, but mine is great,Overall, highly recommended. I have, however, only had it less than a week. If things change I will update this review accordingly.

Elephant in the room first - coolers that just blow air at the base of your laptop don't work very well. To see why, flip your laptop over to look at the base. About 10% of the surface area of your laptop's base will be vents, meaning 90% of any air blown at it will just hit a wall and go around the outside of the laptop.And that is what happened initially with this cooling pad with my Acer gaming laptop (Predator Helios 300 model number PH315-55, RTX3080, i7-12700H) - no noticeable temperature reduction over and above just lifting the laptop off the table by the same amount as this cooler. Bah!A bit of Googling revealed that most laptop coolers don't work because of this reason. Any temp drop actually comes from the cooler creating more clearance at the base.The few coolers that work seal the base of the laptop onto the cooler (via a foam seal) so that airflow cannot escape. This creates a slight high pressure around the base of the laptop, making it easier for your laptop's fans to draw in air. This in turn creates better airflow... and cooler temps.Worth a try.I had some PVC door draught excluder lying about (search for it on Amazon via its ASIN - B0BXP1MDGZ). I stuck this around the edges of the cooler's grille so it would be airtight against the Acer's base and waddaya know, it worked!The thing about recent CPUs is that they all run hot and will easily reach their throttle temp (for my i7, that is 92C - easily reached during gaming). With the TEkNet cooler plus my pressure chamber mod, the laptop never reaches 92C, instead topping out at about 88C.A 4 degree change is not much, but it is enough for the laptop to maintain 100% performance without throttling, so that has to be a win.The other thing is if you put this cooler on a flat surface, you block about half the airflow because no air comes in from the underside (airflow is now from the sides only). Raise the back by about 2cm and it works better. My RTX3080 laptop used to hit the mid 80s on the GPU, but with the draught excluder and the 2cm gap, I can leave it rendering for hours (Flux and stable diffusion AI) and it never gets past the high 60s, which is desktop level airflow. Even better that I don't have to raise the laptop fan speed from default to do it, raising the life of the laptop, and lowering the laptop fan noise (small laptop fans make more noise than the larger fans in this cooler).So, full marks if you are prepared to make a change or two (and less than half the price of the pressure chamber coolers - such as the KLIM Everest - if you follow my tip!). As useless as every other cooler if you are not prepared to do this.Oh, and throttlestop is also your friend (and it is free). For laptop Intel 12 series and above, the CPU package TDP is rated for about 45W, but the chip is typically allowed to peak much higher - 130W(!), causing cores to often hit their throttle limits This is fine for most applications, but not games - as any CPU that hits its throttle limit is probably getting hot doing a lot of work managing an important game process, and throttling it momentarily causes a micro-stutter. Set the power limit to 45-55W via throttlestop to avoid these throttle-bounces.