Review: ThermalTake iXoft Fanless Cooling Pad
Posted by Jon Lee in Reviews, tags: iXoft Cooling Pad, laptop, review, Thermaltake
Many laptop owners can attest to their notebooks generating enough heat to warm a small room — especially those overheating Macbook(Pros).
There are many cooling pads on the market that either utilize fans to actively cool the laptop or by raising the laptop up to increase ventilation (or both). ThermalTake’s iXoft Fanless Cooling Pad takes a very different approach.
I purchased this cooling pad a few weeks ago when it was on sale at a local computer store for a mere $20 which puts it at around the same price as lower end fan-powered cooling pads.
Appearance
As the name implies, this cooling pad doesn’t have a fan. In fact, it doesn’t even use electricity so there are no cords. The pad itself has nylon-like top that contains bumps and grooves. The bottom of the pad is made of felt as to prevent sliding from the surface the pad is resting on.
When I went to purchase it, there was a white version and a black and red version. I picked the black and red simply because they are the Thinkpad colors and I love my Thinkpad. The build quality is fairly high and looks like it can sustain years of use and abuse especially since there aren’t any electronics or moving parts to worry about.
How it Works
So how does it keep your laptop cool without a fan? The secret lies within the chemical compound inside the cooling pad. It is Sodium Sulfate Decahydrate (Na2SO4.10H2O), also known as Glauber’s salt. From what I read on Wikipedia, this compound turns from its solid crystal state to a liquid state at just 32 degrees Celsius (90 F).
When not in use, the iXoft cooling pad feels like it is full of small rocks (the salt in solid crystal form). It is bendable and cool to the touch. When a laptop is placed on top of it, heat generated from the laptop gets absorbed by the pad, slowly turning the salts into their liquid form. The theory is that heat absorbed gets spread out over the surface of the cooling pad and dissipates in to the air.
Tests and Results
Upon extensive usage over a week’s time, I have come to the following conclusions about the product:
- The pad absorbs heat from the laptop, able to lower my laptop’s running temperature by about 3-4 degrees Celsius which isn’t bad.
- After about an hour of use, the portion of the pad touching the laptop becomes a warm gel, no longer able to absorb any more heat and the laptop temperature goes back up to its original level.
- The heat is not spread over the entire surface of the cooling pad — rather it is focused only on the spots where the laptop and the pad make contact.
When not in use, the cooling pad takes about an hour to “recharge” — that is, to release its stored heat and to turn back into a crystal form.- The bumps and grooves on the cooling pad help with ventilation but once the salt becomes a gel, these bumps and grooves cease to exist and stops providing ventilation.
Conclusion
ThermalTake’s iXoft Fanless Cooling Pad is useful when you want to insulate your laptop from your lap or if you want to use your laptop on a soft surface like your bed. However, it is not suitable for constant desktop use and may even do more harm than good.
It’s a good idea in theory and for $20 it wouldn’t be a terrible investment but definitely not a permanent cooling solution if your laptop is constantly overheating.
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