01 Aug 07 It’s Cool

Skeptical person that I am, I wasn’t convinced that these laptop cooling mats really worked.

The laptop I have here is around 4-5 years old. It’s an HP Pavilion 5400. It’s got 512MB ram, and a P4 CPU in it. The desktop type CPU means it runs hot. It therefore had a tendency to shut itself down, and then Linux would refuse to boot as it would report excessive temperature.

Enter the Targus Cooling Mat. It does work. Even when busy working KTemperature reports a CPU temperature of 41C, whereas before it was at 42C when resting. That figure now goes down to around 36C.

It certainly seems to be worth the $30 investment. It plugs into a spare USB port, so you’ll need to use either one on the laptop itself or a powered hub, as it’s drawing power for the fans from it.