Laptop cooling?

[kam_]

With the hot weather and the intensive apps i'm running on my t43p (oh ok i mean games) its getting really hot these days.
I saw a friend of mine over the weekend who was using a USB lap cooling pad which you put your laptop ontop of. It cools the bottom of the laptop - i'm sure u all seen them.

Anyway my question was has anyone used on? are they any good? and can anyone recomend one for a 15" IBM - i.e. that is large enough and fits with the colours and contours?

thanks

[dsigma6]

ive never really found them to do much outside of keeping the laptop off of your lap of other surface it cant ventilate on. i use a targus coolpad, which is just a platform that rotates 360 degrees, and has pillars in the back to prop the laptop up for cooling. if youre using it in a stationary environment, its easy to focus a fan underneath and quickly take the temperatures down anywhere from 15-25C.

[RRHODY]

I've been using one for several years. I plug it in to my desktop USB if I'm using the laptop near the desktop. I've also used it plugged in to the laptop USB. I've never done any checking as to whether it is effective. I figured it can't do any harm, except to drain power through the USB port. I got mine at a swap meet for $17.00. It has four (4) separate fans, all going at once and spread around the surface.

[dsigma6]

my original intentions were to buy the coolpad, and rig a larger cpu/crt cooling fan to blow air directly at the bottom. they were selling a good size crt usb cooling fan on ebay for $20, so it wouldnt be hard.

the power consumption is something to consider however.

[kam_]

can anyone point me to anything specific they are using/can recommend?

Alot of the time i put my laptop to full performance and it sits at 100% CPU for long periods of time. I figure if i'm at home, and its plugged into the charger, cooling by USB can only help?