Small, lightweight, effective (for some) laptop cooler with possibly annoying blue LEDs (depends on your taste) – Joe
SUMMARY: Small, lightweight, effective (for some) laptop cooler with possibly annoying blue LEDs (depends on your taste).
The good guys at Spire were nice enough to send a sample of their Spire PacificBreeze Laptop Cooler to try out. This is noticeably different from other laptop coolers I have seen in that it’s basically houses just the fans – a very compact (portable?) design.
Key Features:
- Fans: 70 x 70 x 25 mm, 19 cfm at 2,100 rpm or 24 cfm at 2,600 rpm, sleeve bearing, blue LEDs
- Power: From USB port, two speed switch
- Size: 260 x 100 x 26 mm
- Weight: 255 grams
- Includes: USB Cable
The fans include some very bright LEDs:
The laptop rests on the two pads in front of fans so that the fans are out in the open – this helps to reduce noise as there is nothing blocking incoming airflow. Low speed is quiet, while high speed is noticeable but not objectionable – I would suspect most of the time it would be running on low. There is no external power supply – it’s powered solely by the USB port.
To try it out, I used my ASUS Z71A. I used a program called CPU Cool to monitor CPU temps with Prime95 running. Once turned on, there is a noticeable flow of air under the laptop’s back. However, I found minimal improvement – about 1ºC cooler.
I thought about why and I think that the ASUS Z71A’s cooling does not use the back of the laptop the way some others do. The Asus uses two fans to cool the CPU and Northbridge chips:
In use, the Asus’ back does not get appreciably warm, so airflow will not have as much of an impact as some others found. While my laptop did not run appreciably cooler, others have had dramatic cooling from using a PacificBreeze – check out user comments on NewEgg Customer Reviews.
Spire’s PacificBreeze, based on user NewEgg’s user comments, appears to be an effective laptop cooling solution, although I suspect that if your laptop’s back does not get appreciable warm, any laptop cooler will not do much for cooling. If you’re not into bright blue LEDs, you have to open the back and clip some wires to turn them off. At under $20, the PacificBreeze can be a very good buy.
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