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How do you keep your Macbook Pro or Powerbook Cool?

  • Nothing. It runs fine on a hard surface without extra fans

    Votes: 21 60.0%
  • Passive Cooling stand (Just to elevate it)

    Votes: 5 14.3%
  • Active Cooling Stand (Powered fans)

    Votes: 5 14.3%
  • I just leave the Mac as is... But I tinker with the internal fans for optimal cooling.

    Votes: 4 11.4%

  • Total voters
    35

wayland1985

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
557
29
Just curious what you guys are doing (if anything) to keep your aluminum mac's cool?
 
No active cooling, but I do have a Griffin Elevator stand that gives the bottom some air to breathe.
 
Passive cooling. I use the Elevator.

What options are out there to actively cool my mbp?
 
Passive cooling. I use the Elevator.

What options are out there to actively cool my mbp?

I had a Vantec cooling pad with a 4 port usb hub. Kept mine really cool, but it was loud, and kind of got in my way.

As I shop for a replacement to my powerbook, I wonder what the rest of you are doing.
 
i was thinking of making one after i was getting 170F
then i redid my drive and stuff blah blah and its been running cooler.
i made scaled drawings and ahh would have been so great if i had something to bend metal precisely, it had a nice big fan too and a spot for both my external drives that do not have fans and are often quit warm
 
I try not to mess with a good thing!

that is exactly what people say when they can not deal with change.

this is also the main reason why my sister and mom have yet let me touch there computers or make them faster.
they say it works.
my mom has a 1.8 something windows
and my 1.07 iBook runs apps and web sites that one can only dream about, and my moms had more ram.

i literally threw my iBook at my sister, then she finally realized how crap her computer was running.
did a defrag and cleaned everything up and there was like 10 trojans running in the background.



so...
things can always be improved. always.

the curve might flatten a lot but there is improvement.

i mean come on. if we didn't think about using stronger magnets on our hdd's we would still be using the first version which was 50 disks at 24 in diameter and could only hold 5 mb (yes mega bytes)
 
My current Dell XPS m1210 runs up to 90 degrees Celsius or more when I use it to play games so out of habit, I use a powered cooler. No change when I pick up my MBP from the retailer in two weeks' time.
 
Im still trying to decide between iLap and Elevator, but one of them definitely be used with my new Penryn.
 
The only thing I do to keep my PowerBook cool is if I'm viewing a flash-heavy website which maxes out the CPU, I sometimes go into the Energy Saver prefs and turn the processor down to "Reduced Power" - this usually results in a peak processor temp of around 53C, as opposed to 60+C

One of the main reasons for doing this is because my PowerBook acts as a brilliant radiator in my small room :D And sometimes I don't want to boil!
 
I use an Elevator along with SMC Fan Control. I really only kick in SMC when temps go higher.

The nice part of the Elevator is that air flow is good all around (bottom and where the vents are located) so it makes it a lot easier to keep your notebook cooler.

Nonetheless, there are those times when internal temps just go haywire and you need the fans to go into high gear (hence SMC).
 
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