PSA for laptop folders

[iceman1992]

If you're using a laptop to fold, and your laptop has an exhaust either on the left or right side (will not work otherwise), you probably can benefit from using a laptop vacuum cooler (quick search on amazon it's around $20-$30).
My Asus ROG G551VW with a GTX960M was constantly thermal throttling down to 405-600MHz (from a base clock of 1096MHz), resulting in PPD anywhere from
12k-30k PPD.
I just installed a cooler and now it's running at a constant 1087MHz core clock. PPD went up to 88k. Much better than I expected. But of course YMMV with different configurations

Here's what it looks like for reference (not mine, but pretty much the same thing)

[Juggy]

That looks like a neat device.

Have you considered the fact that your cooling system in the laptop may be clogged with dust?

Strangely enough I had a friend with an Asus ROG similar to yours and the cooling fins were full of cat hair, he was experiencing the throttling as well. I took it apart, cleaned everything out, applied Thermal Grizzly thermal compound to both CPU and GPU and he hasn't had a days trouble since.

[toTOW]

I had to completely disassemble my Asus ROG laptop after 5 years to clean it and change the fried thermal paste.

[iceman1992]

Yeah it's never been cleaned in 4 years of me owning it. I don't think I wanna chance opening it up now and breaking something with the repair centers all closed.
But it really is neat, literally just sucks out the hot air. It's loud at max power though (which is what I set it at), sounds like a mini hairdryer.
This is much more effective than laptop cooling pads that are more common, a rather low cost method to boost PPD.

[FoldingFodder]

Interesting. I see that your fan has a fan. :')

Has your laptop fan complained about this device disturbing it?

Have you measured your temps with and and without this device?

[iceman1992]

I think the built in fan is very glad to get some help

Same temps because it's still hitting the thermal limit, but at much higher core clock speeds as I said. Before, it needed to downclock to 405-600MHz to maintain a temperature of 81-83C. Now it's stable at 1097MHz at 81-83C (occasionally boosting to something like 1180MHz). And I'm seeing almost 3x PPD from 15-30k to 80-90k.