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The 6 best laptop cooling pads can keep your hot new computer very chill
Havit
The latest laptops are supposed to keep themselves relatively cool. But some laptops handle this task better than others. To get the best performance — and in some cases extend battery life — you should buy a cooling pad to draw the hot air away from your laptop to prevent it from overheating.
And it’s not just about discomfort. If laptop gets too hot, you run the risk of damaging it. This will also lower the overall performance of the computer. Any laptop can benefit from a cooling pad, but it’s particularly useful with gaming laptops or laptops that use a good deal of processing power.
Keep in mind, not all cooling pads are compatible with all laptops. Some require the use of one of your laptop’s USB ports, so make sure the proper port is available. Also, if the cooling pad is too large or too small for your laptop, it won’t do a good job keeping your computer at an optimal temperature.
What is the best laptop cooling pad?
Not everyone needs a laptop cooling pad, but if you find your laptop’s bottom often gets hot to the touch, especially after extended usage or while you’re performing tasks that require a lot of processing power, here are the cooling pads our laptop experts recommend.
Best laptop cooling pad: Thermaltake Massive 20
Amazon
The Thermaltake Massive 20 RGB cooling pad features 256-color RGB lighting with five visually pleasing modes — wave, RGB spectrum, pulse, blink, and full lighted. And while this device looks cool, it’s also designed to keep your laptop running at its optimal temperature.
It uses a built-in 200 millimeter fan that offers an adjustable fan speed — between 600 and 800 rotations per minute. The unit itself provides an ergonomic design for laptops with up to a 19-inch display. The cooling pad measures 18.5 x 14 x 1.8 inches, weighs 3.35 pounds and is made using steel mesh and plastic. It’s powered via one of your laptop’s USB ports.
For comfort and convenience, this cooling pad offers three adjustable height settings — degrees, 9 degrees and 13 degrees — so you can use it as an adjustable stand to achieve the ideal viewing angle. The cooling pad comes with the required USB cable.
Best budget laptop cooling pad: Aimiuzi laptop cooling pad
Amazon
For less than $20, you can start protecting your laptop from overheating with the Aimiuzi laptop cooling pad. It’s designed for laptops with a display up to 15.6 inches and uses five fans to help your laptop maintain an optimal temperature.
We like that this cooling pad also serves as an adjustable tabletop stand with five angle options, so you can position your computer at the perfect viewing and typing angle.
This cooling pad works nicely with the Apple MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, along with Windows laptops from HP, Alienware, Dell, Lenovo, Asus and others. The required USB cable is included. Also integrated into this cooling pad are LED lights, two USB ports and a smartphone holder. The fans generate no more than 26 decibels of sound.
Best cooling pad for gaming laptops: Llano V15 RGB laptop cooling pad
Amazon
For the enhanced cooling needs required by many gaming laptops, this cooling pad from Llano does the trick. It’s suitable for laptops with a display between 15 and 19 inches. It includes height-adjustable legs and a three-in-one USB hub for convenience.
To maximize its cooling capabilities, the cooling pad uses specialized foam to seal around the outer edges of the laptop’s bottom, so hot air can be drawn away more efficiently. The takeaway: A dramatic CPU and GPU temperature drop in just 90 seconds.
And since this cooling pad is designed for gaming laptops, it also features an RGB light bar with four lighting modes and 10 light colors. You can control the RGB lighting using a built-in touch key. Also using touch-sensitive buttons, you can easily select the desired fan speed. That way, you can quickly find the perfect balance between cooling performance and noise level.
Best laptop cooling pad for lap use: Targus 17 dual fan lap chill mat
Amazon
Suitable for laptops with a display up to 17 inches, this Targus dual fan cooling pad is designed for people who prefer to use a laptop on an actual lap. To make this more comfortable, you get a soft layer of neoprene padding on the bottom, as well as angle adjustability.
The Targus cooling pad is powered by your computer via a USB Type-A cable connection. The unit measures 15 by 11.75 by 1 inch when folded and weighs about two pounds, so it’s a bit lighter than many of its competitors. Also integrated into the cooling pad’s design is a four-port hub.
This cooling pad features an open mesh top that allows airflow to quickly move away from your laptop. This ensures constant cooling. Meanwhile, four rubber stops on the face help prevent your computer from slipping around during use.
Best cooling pad for Apple MacBooks: Havit HV-F2056 laptop cooling pad
Amazon
Designed for laptops with a display between 15.6 inches and 17 inches, the Havit HV-F2056 works with most MacBook laptops, including the latest MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops. However, it works nicely with most Windows laptops, too.
It uses a three-fan system to cool your laptop and draw hot air away from it while you’re working. The device measures 15 by 11 by 1.2 inches and weighs 1.54 pounds, so it’s easy to transport with your laptop.
We like this cooling pad because it’s height-adjustable via folding legs, so it doubles as an ergonomic tabletop stand. It’s also designed to provide relatively quiet operation. You also get two USB ports, so you can also use the cooling pad as a hub.
Based on more than 41,500 user reviews, the Havit HV-F2056 has earned a 4.5-star rating (out of five) on Amazon. When purchasing this cooling pad from Amazon, be sure to click on the instant 20% off coupon for added savings. This brings the device’s price down to just $22.
Best cooling pad for larger laptops: Dell cooling stand for 17″ laptops
Dell
While this is a Dell product, the brand’s cooling stand works nicely with laptops from most brands with displays that are up to 17 inches. This cooling pad uses five quiet, but high-performing, fans that operate at up to 2,630 rotations per minute. The cooling pad’s operation is accompanied by red LED lighting.
This cooling pad can double as an adjustable stand for your laptop and comes with built-in bumpers to hold your computer firmly in place. The stand can accommodate three height settings to provide an ergonomic experience when using your computer.
You get five fans and an adjustable wheel to control speed and the red LED lights. The cooling pad measures 15.7 by 12.8 by 2 inches and weighs 3.09 pounds. One USB Type-A port is built in and is used to connect the cooling pad to your laptop via a cable.
Strapped into the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut returned to Earth early Friday, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico to close out an extended 235-day expedition to the International Space Station.
After a high-speed re-entry above Central America and a steep descent to the Gulf, Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, co-pilot Michael Barratt, astronaut Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin settled to a gentle, on-target splashdown south of Pensacola, Florida, at 3:29 a.m. EDT.
NASA TV
A SpaceX team stationed nearby was on the scene within minutes to stabilize the capsule, make sure no toxic propellant fumes were present and then to haul it aboard a nearby recovery ship where NASA flight surgeons and support personnel were standing by to carry the returning station fliers out of the crew cabin.
Despite two hours of exercise per day throughout their stay in orbit, returning station astronauts need about a month or more to regain their “land legs” after months in the weightless environment of space.
As such, Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin were expected to be carried out of the Crew Dragon and placed on stretchers before being rolled inside the ship for initial medical checks and calls to family and friends. All four appeared in good spirits, smiling and waving as they were rolled inside.
Mission duration was 235 days three hours and 35 minutes, during which the spacecraft circled the globe 3,776 times covering 100 million miles since launch from the Kennedy Space Center on March 3.
NASA
The crew originally expected to return to Earth in September. But the flight slipped into early October in the wake of a decision to delay the launch of their Crew 9 replacements because of problems with Boeing’s Starliner crew ferry ship.
NASA eventually ruled out bringing Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams back to Earth aboard the Boeing spacecraft. Instead, the Starliner came down without its crew on September 7 and Crew 9 was launched with just two passengers — Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexander Gobrunov — on Sept. 28.
That freed up two seats aboard the Crew Dragon for Wilmore and Williams to use when they come home next February with Hague and Gorbunov.
Sorting all that out pushed the Crew 8 departure into October. NASA and SpaceX then were repeatedly held up by high winds and rough seas at the approved splashdown sites, much of it related to hurricanes Helene and Milton.
But this week, conditions in the Gulf finally met NASA’s safety guidelines and the crew was cleared to undock and head for home.
With Crew 8 safely back on Earth, the Crew 9 crew will board their own Crew Dragon capsule early Sunday, Nov. 3, undock from the Harmony module’s forward port and then redock at its space-facing port.
The next day, an ISS-bound SpaceX cargo ship is scheduled for launch from the Kennedy Space Center. After an automated rendezvous, the ship will dock at the just vacated forward port on Nov. 5, election day in the United States.
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A 15-year-old boy was charged Thursday with murder in the shooting deaths of his parents and three of his siblings at a home in Fall City, Washington, according to court documents obtained by CBS News.
The teen, whose name is being withheld because he is a juvenile, was charged with five counts of aggravated murder in the slayings of his parents, Mark and Sarah Humiston, two brothers, ages 9 and 13, and his 7-year-old sister, per King County court records.
He was also charged with one count of attempted murder for shooting and wounding his 11-year-old sister, the documents read.
That girl was in “satisfactory condition” at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, hospital spokesperson Susan Gregg told the Associated Press Tuesday.
Autopsies performed by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that all five victims died of gunshot wounds. The handgun used in the shooting was believed to belong to the victim’s father, the court records state.
According to the charging documents, just before 5 a.m. Monday, the suspect called 911 with a false story in which he claimed that his 13-year-old brother “just shot my whole family and committed suicide too” at the family’s home in Fall City, which is a community located near Seattle.
However, at about the same time as that call, 911 dispatchers received a second call from a neighbor who lives about a quarter-mile away. That neighbor said the suspect’s 11-year-old sister had ran to his house and was bleeding from what appeared to be a gunshot wound, the documents said.
The girl said her entire family had been fatally shot and identified her 15-year-old brother as the shooter. The girl told dispatchers she was also shot by her brother and “then described holding her breath and playing dead,” the documents read. The girl later told detectives that she had escaped through a bedroom window.
Deputies responded to the Humiston home, where they found the suspect in the driveway and took him into custody, court records show. The five victims were found dead inside the home.
In a hospital interview with detectives later that day, the suspect’s surviving sister said that she identified the firearm used in the shooting as “her father’s silver Glock handgun,” court documents state.
She said that her father kept the pistol in a small lockbox that “he would sometimes put by the front door so he could bring it to work,” the documents read. She told detectives that the suspect was “the only one who knew the combination to the Glock lockbox.”
Investigators determined that the suspect “systematically murdered” his parents and siblings and “then staged the scene prior to the arrival of first responders to make it appear” that the murders had been committed by his 11-year-old brother, documents read.
The court documents did not speculate on a motive.
The suspect is scheduled to be arraigned Friday afternoon. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said in a news release Thursday that the suspect is in custody at the Clark Child and Family Justice Center, which is a juvenile facility.
The teen is currently being charged as a juvenile, and prosecutors said a judge will determine whether his case “will be moved to adult court.”
In a statement Tuesday, public defenders representing the suspect said that “our client is a 15-year-old boy who enjoys mountain biking and fishing and has no criminal history.”
