A heat sink for a laptop power supply

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A heat sink for a laptop power supply

Any benefit?

cmendla

5:47 pm on Mar 7, 2009 (gmt 0)

I have an hp pavillion laptop that I use as my main machine. When at home I run a chill hub and on the road I use that crystal based mat from targus. The machine runs cool.

However, I noticed that the power supply gets pretty warm to the touch. I was thinking about getting a heat sink and attaching it to the power supply. I'm not worried about making it bulkier since I have a different power supply for when I'm out of the office. The EOM power supply stays in the office.

I was wondering if anyone else has done anything like this?

I would think that making the ps run cooler would extend it's life a bit or is it not worth the effort?

thanks

kaled

2:29 pm on Mar 8, 2009 (gmt 0)

Laptop power supplies are encased in plastic so adding a heatsink would have only a marginal affect. Also, they are pretty efficient and should not get more than warm - if you have one that gets hot, it's probably faulty.

Kaled.

martinibuster

5:24 am on Mar 9, 2009 (gmt 0)

My power supply gets pretty hot, too. A heatsink should draw heat away from the PSU. Whether it does any good, well, in most other electronic components drawing heat away from them generally extends their lives or keeps them from becoming damaged.

But I think these PSUs are engineered to perform well and agree with kaled that any effort to cool it will result in marginal if any benefit. In using laptops, both mac and PC, for the past thirteen years, I've never had an external PSU go bad, even under extremely hot and humid tropical conditions.