On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 16:19 +0800, Mark Secker wrote: > sorry this screams "gadget gimmick" - so long as there is sufficient > airflow any decent laptop stand should not need additional cooling > and simply moves the fan noise from inside the case to outside the > case. > > Any well designed laptop will have sufficient cooling by convection > (simply air flowing around it) and/or by its internal fan to allow it > to work on any flat surface so long as the laptop stands on it's > feet.
Unfortunately, I think the key words "well designed" are important here. There are a lot of appallingly designed laptops out there, some of which get absurdly hot - and some that won't turn their cooling fans on until "critical" temperatures, even on mains power. Some laptops also have cooling fans that sound like jet engines, where you may wish to help cool it using other means to reduce how much the fan turns on. That said, I imagine the mac laptops would be decently enough made not to suffer from these issues. Personally I have an older Toshiba that, under Linux, has nice manual fan and power control, so I can run it in slower-and-silent mode even on mains. I'd actually be very interested in knowing if the mac laptops have this (and if you can manually turn the fan on if you wish to keep the laptop cooler than it does normally). -- Craig Ringer
