Zalman NC1000 lost its nack?

Its been several months (almost a year) that i've owned this golden laptop cooler, however i fear that it has been losing its cooling capabilities now.

For one, i tried the tissue paper test recently and noticed that the tissue barely retains itself in mid air....instead it somewhat hovers around the cooling base.

Also, its the beginning of summer and my house can get really hot (especially since the AC has stopped working for about a week).

I checked the cooler to see what kind of "air" was blown into my laptop only to find that the temperature was not at all cold, more like a light humid breeze.

Is my cooler broken? I've dusted it off with some compressed air so the vents are dust or particle free!

Any suggestions? Or should I call Zalman for an exchange

 

have you opened up the Zalman to clean out the fans and vents in there?

 

I dont know how to :s i unscrewed the screws however the top wont buge...i dont want to break it but if brute force is required well..

 

you dont need to force it.

there are screws under the rubber pieces (one under each of the small rubbers on the top, and more screws under the long rubber strip on the bottom of the stage)

 

ok ill try that and see if anything changed

 

you will find that on a hot day with no AC, the Zalman is weaker since its just pushing hot air (from the environment) through... which is lighter than cold air (which can be explained by your tissue test)

 

Mind my blindness Gophn but i believe there are only 4 screws on the aluminum plate of the Zalman...i have looked for several minutes to find others but i couldnt...

I couldnt ply off the aluminum plate either even after removing the 4 screws so i dont know what your talking about. Perhaps it is the Zalman Nc2000 you speak of?

 

listen....

there are more screws underneath the rubber pads.

the small rubber pads on the top of the stage.... and the long rubber strip on the bottom of the stage.

you have to peel the rubber pads off (I recommend slowly) to reveal those screws.

 

ooooo guess i mis-read lol -_-;

Anyways i'll have to glue em on again right?

 

nope.

if you peel it up carefully, the adhesive will still be good for you to put it back

 

I just bought the Zalman NC1000 from newegg and when I turn the fan onto the highest setting I can barely feel anything coming out from the vents. How strong should the air be? I'm worried my cooler may be defective

 

make sure the bottom fans of the Zalman are not blocked

the amount of air is about the same as (or slightly more than) an air hockey table's

 

Something I think is definitely wrong with my cooler than. I can barely feel any pressure coming from the vents....

 

Can you hear the fans hum louder when you turn the dial?

 

Yea, I can hear the fans hum louder when I turn u the speed when I put my ear next to it. Maybe I'm expecting alot more air to come out of the vents...but i barely feel anything coming out of the vents. No where near the pressure of a air hockey table at least. My girlfriend even thought the cooler was off when I had it running.

 

Just as I expected, the fans do work. Don't let the NC1000 fool you, CFused. This cooler can lower your temps better than you expect despite "barely any pressure coming from the vents." You have yet to show us any proof that the Zalman doesn't work as you never did an AB test with it yet. Try it first before you pronounce it broken.

 

its very silent in sound.

put a piece of paper over it and the paper should barely be lifted off of the surface... like air hockey.

its not supposed to blast air out at high rates... just a constant low rate that covers the base of the cooler.

thats normal.

when you put your notebook over it, the air will be cooling the bottom side of the notebook, so when your notebook intakes air from the bottom, it will be much cooler than on another surface that can get warmer as you use the notebook longer... that is what is important.

 

Well...to be fair...I was never bashing it. I just honestly thought maybe the fans were broken. As this is my first notebook cooler, I'm not sure what kind of pressure I should be feeling out of the vents. Gophn described it as "the amount of air is about the same as (or slightly more than) an air hockey table's" and I can assure you that mine is no where near that. Nonetheless, you do make a point, maybe this is normal so the best thing to do is to actually test the numbers out and see if there's a difference.

 

depending on your notebook's bottom thermal design, results may vary.

also, I even posted a video on how to mod the Zalman cooler to make it more efficient for any specific notebook... very simple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVWk2ywIsWw