As I sat at my house on a late Wednesday night I found myself once again browsing my Eee Pc 1000H that was sitting on the same desk as my 3000 dollar computer and wall mounted 22" widescreen monitor.  This made me think.... why am I so drawn to this little screen and tiny keyboard with so much at my fingertips.   The conundrum was almost be settling yet I've seemed to fallen in love with my little laptop that could.  As I sat there tweaking config files to push even more horses outta my atom processor I finally reached 2ghz!!!!! YES I've pushed into a realm of uber super mini netbooks that will be unprecedented, but this elation was shortly lived because my computer screen went crazy with vivid colors and I knew I had overheated once again.  BLAST YOU cruel fate!!!!!!!  Yet in this moment of pain came a revelation; I can make something to cool my Eee PC that isnt heavy, lunky, large and built for those 15" laptop carriers that get shoulder problems by the age of 25 from the weight of their "Manly" laptops.  As I began to brain storm possibilities ranging from ice trays with fans on them to a shoe box with tin foil on it shot thru my brain like shooting stars in the night, and finally I had my master plan.  I need to make a laptop cooler that is as small as my Eee PC, and cost less than any on the market.  Also it needs to be portable and strong enough to last me into my college days spent at the library drooling on Anat and Phys lecture notes cracked out on redbulls and nicotine.

The idea was simple take a 1 inch binder place fans in it and tuh duh, I win, you lose, ha ha ha ha ha...... If only things were so simple.  I found once of my old notebooks sitting amongst the dust, and volumes of old school books.  It was PERFECT!!!! My 1000H fit on it like a match made in heaven, like Sonny and Cher, like Bonnie and Clyde, like Simba and Nala.... I digress, anyways it was sweet.  Now was for the fun part I pulled out my box o' computer ****, which was a ghastly manifestation of 90's computer parts and **** i'd stolen from unsuspecting computer repair customers.  In it I found 2 case fans that seemed perfect for the job and they had shiny glowy blue LED's to boot!  Already in my brain I was contemplating how badass I would be amongst my computer peers, the cheers and gratification was almost instant.

Now was the fun part lets start cutting **** up and seeing what happens, briefly remembering that USB has a small output of power, and well ofcourse its what every other laptop cooler uses I did the first logical thing, I grabbed a USB cable and cut it in half.  It was amazing the little 4 colored wires inside, I can remember it like it was 7 hours ago....... Red, White, Black, and Green.  Well now that I was staring at my cords I looked at my fans and noticed oh so inconspicuously that they also shared a Red and Black wire..... HA HA HA electronics are so simple.... after cutting and supposedly wiring them together I thought YA BABY its test time.   Plugging them into my usb port I was on the edge of my seat, but sadly i got nothing but a low dim light and a slow undulation of the fan in 1 final fatal rotation.  I even tried spinning the fan real real fast, but to my dismay this only resulted in a **** spasming fan action that put out negative air flow.  Frustrated I figured it was surely the wiring..... WRONG it turns out that the power that I knew came from the USB port was extremely minuet, and my sweet LED Case fans took way too much power. 

Now I was festering with frustration it was 2 in the morning and I had just been beatin by a 2 dollar piece of chinese plastic....  As I rooted thru my computer junk bin I found an old AMD CPU heatsink, and to my avail it was the same dimensions but it wasn't as thick as the case fans.  So throwing my inhibitions to the winds I quickly unscrewed the fan snipped the wires and OH ****, **** **** ****, GODDAMNIT I just cut the **** outta my finger with that piece of **** razor blade.  After a quick duct tape job to my finger and some cussing that would make a pirates mother cry I found my self at the moment of truth.  As i plugged my USB cord into its slot with a quivering and still bloody finger I felt all the suspense of the moment and to my surprise it had worked my lil fan came kickin and screamin into this world like a new born baby ready to kick **** and take names.  With this under my belt I was feeling pretty confident so I rooted even further into my bin.  I found exactly what I was looking for; A little northbridge fan that couldnt be more than an 2" x 2".  Again I began cutting the wires, yet at a much slower pace to make sure I didnt end up with a second wound.

I took my 3 wires in hand and began thinking this is simple just splice all 3 together and keep on truckin.  I got all three wires pushed together with my fat fingers, which probably looked something like a virgin trying to perform sex for the first time in the back seat of a 82 VW rabbit, but after this small hickup I was ready to test it out.  Again I slowly plummeted my USB into its port with the utmost aspirations and to my surprise it was working HOLY **** BATMAN it was working!!!! and then not 10 seconds in the fans stop and even more unsettling my notebook shuts off.........Uhhh?  I press the power button, once, twice, I hold it down, 5 , 10 , 30 seconds..... **** nothing...... uh ohhhhhh.  Now sure that I had just fried my 700 dollar Eee PC and it was full of overclocking software and the works I began to ponder how I was going to explain this to Newegg when i shipped it in as defective....  In a last ditch effort i took my battery out and put it back in and YES it worked it worked like new.  I found out the hard way dont let the red, and black wires touch.... EVER.

Now was the simple part cutting out the holes for my fans, taping down the fans and wires and making the ultimate 10 dollar laptop cooler.  With some careful calculations of cord size, and positioning of my USB cord I finalized my project.  Looking like a mix of duct tape, notebook, and random PC parts I had my fully functional and oh so cooling notebook cooler.  Testing was a breeze, no pun intended ha ha ha... and finally i decided to help all you other folks make your own.  Thanks for your time reading my journey, and I hope you enjoy the pictures and the humor.





Here is a video of the making and functionality of the notebook cooler     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSZ0qfY2Vf0




The Eee PC on the notebook




Equipment needed




Cutting the USB cable




Cutting the fans




The tape job




Size comparison




Up and running




Running side by side




Side view




Front view





So thats my little project and there will be a HOW TO posted on youtube.com as well just look up Eee PC homemade cooler

Last edited by layz4life2 (2008-08-22 1:46:22 am)

gotta love ghetto mods

yeah, but it's more fun if you do it yourself and then you brag about it to all your geeky friends

Cool

You should promote it on lifehacker.com!

I skipped the text and wet straight to the video
Nice job, wont the binder bend in over time like most binders do?
I suggest you tape a few pencils to the underside, where the fans are placed to keep it from collapsing/beding inwards.
But very cool/creative way of making a cooling pad

Thats quite nice ^
Must draw a lot of power for the LEDs and the 3 Fans
Where in you contry did you get this from ?
Link ?

layz4life2 wrote:

I applaud your determination and ghetto mod skills, but definitely not my taste, aesthetically.

Last edited by burnin8r (2008-08-22 12:19:43 pm)

the first thing I thought of was raptor jesus...

tarkin wrote:

Cool

You should promote it on lifehacker.com!

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "promote it" on lifehacker?

So, I just grabbed a spare USB cable from some cheapo speakers that ran from battery or USB or DC. I assumed that the wireing inside would just be the red and the black as all the cable did was supply power.... BUT OMG WTF it has 5 cables internally... A red, black, white, green, yellow...

WHAT THE JUNK?

Polarbear wrote:

So, I just grabbed a spare USB cable from some cheapo speakers that ran from battery or USB or DC. I assumed that the wireing inside would just be the red and the black as all the cable did was supply power.... BUT OMG WTF it has 5 cables internally... A red, black, white, green, yellow...

WHAT THE JUNK?

Ya man every USB cable will come with RED, BLACK, WHITE, and GREEN. but you were one of the lucky fellows to have a YELLOW cord which was probably for control of power to the speakers, regardless only the red, and black cables are necessary as i showed on my video from youtube.com which is posted above, either way Polarbear youre on the right track and in no time you'll have your own custom made laptop cooler that demands the respect of all your peers

~DKaP

Wow man I think this could be the newest cool craze ghetto mod laptop coolers winning over the crowds in masses..............8D