3 ms·
A large slow fan (~10in at ~10rpm) could move a lot of air across the bottom of the laptop very nearly silently.
by jefftk 7y ago
A large slow fan (~10in at ~10rpm) could move a lot of air across the bottom of the laptop very nearly silently.
- sgerenser 7y agoDo you mean 100 rpm? 10 rpm isn't really going to do anything. When I last looked all of those "laptop cooler pads" use tiny fans that would either be ineffective or loud or both. I settled on the mStand mentioned above, but as noted it has rubber standoffs that prevent it from acting like a true heatsink.
- jefftk 7y agoI mean 10rpm, really! A 10" fan at 10rpm moves about as much air as a 2.5" fan at 160rpm. You're not trying to move huge amounts of air, since heat transfer from the laptop to the air is pretty slow. You just need enough movement to clear out any hot air that is building up under the laptop.
- Izkata 7y ago> You just need enough movement to clear out any hot air that is building up under the laptop. On a nearly totally different tangent, our own bodies build up hot pockets of air indoors as well, where there's no natural breeze to get rid of it. Getting rid of it creates a surprisingly strong cooling effect where you probably won't need AC for a while longer than you expect - and "air circulator" fans are pretty good at doing it over a whole room, so you don't need to keep a fan directed at yourself.
- sgerenser 7y agoWhat fan can even run at 10 rpm without stalling? I don’t think most will even go down to 100.
- bsder 7y agoNope, even 10 rpm is a big change. Going from standing air to any movement is a remarkable change in thermal conductivity.
- PTOB 7y agoAny Noctua brand fan will stun you with its silence. I installed four 20mm fans in a network switch to replace its screaming loud factory fans. They're all running ~1200RPM and it now sounds like a small desk fan. A larger format fan running at a few hundred RPM will likely add very little to the ambient noise around you.
- Yizahi 7y agoAlso big fans (bigger than 140mm) are usually running on noisy ball bearings (or roll bearings) while "standard" 120 and 140 fans are often running on silent magnetic suspension.