You’re buying a modern gaming laptop. A multi-core processor and a high-performance graphics card have been crammed into a slim chassis just two centimetres thick. You launch your favourite game and, after 15 minutes, the case is burning hot to the touch, the fans are roaring like a jet engine, and the frame rate suddenly plummets from 140 to 55 FPS.
Most gamers’ first instinct? Open an online shop and type in: ‘laptop cooling pad’.
Prices range from 40 zł for plastic stands with bright LEDs to as much as 400 zł for massive units with powerful fans. Is this really the salvation for overheating silicon, or simply an expensive, glowing gadget that mainly generates extra noise?
Below, without any marketing hype, we examine how these cooling pads work in practice, when they’re actually useful, and when the problem lies within the operating system.
Why does a gaming laptop lose frames in the first place? (Thermal Throttling)
Before you spend money on accessories, you need to understand what you’re up against. A desktop computer has a spacious case, powerful heat sinks and large 120 mm fans at its disposal. A laptop, on the other hand, has just a few millimetres of free space through which miniature fans try to force hot air.
When the temperature of the processor cores or graphics card reaches its threshold (usually 88-95°C for the CPU and 86°C for the GPU), the chip activates its built-in defence mechanism: thermal throttling.
To prevent the silicon from physically melting, the processor, in a fraction of a second:
Drastically reduces the clock speed (e.g. from 4.6 GHz to just 2.2 GHz).
Limits power consumption (cuts the wattage limit).
The effect in-game: The graphics card doesn’t receive data in time, and the frame rate graph registers massive spikes. Instead of smooth aiming, you get a one-second freeze of the image right at the moment of an exchange of fire.
Cheap mouse pads for 50-100 zł: Why are they often a waste of money?
Most mouse pads available in electronics shops consist of a thin aluminium mesh, colourful RGB lighting and two or four slow-spinning fans powered by a standard USB port.
How does such a gadget fare in the real world?
Zero static pressure: Ordinary 5V fans powered from a USB port merely blow a gentle breeze over the plastic underside of the laptop’s chassis. Plastic is a terrible heat conductor, so cooling the case itself does not noticeably lower the temperature inside the heat pipes.
Conflict with the factory airflow: Every laptop has an airflow system designed by engineers. Often, a cheap cooling pad blows air into areas where the laptop has no air intakes at all, or worse still – disrupts the natural airflow generated by the computer’s factory-fitted fans.
Actual benefit: Measurements show that cheap cooling pads reduce the processor temperature by a mere 1°C to 3°C. This is not enough to bring the components out of the thermal throttling zone.
Surprising fact: A simple, passive stand costing 20 zł, which merely raises the back of the laptop 3-5 cm above the desk surface, provides almost the same temperature reduction as a cooling pad with fans costing 80 zł. Simply exposing the factory ventilation grilles and facilitating the intake of cool air does the trick.
Pressure-sealed cooling pads (e.g. IETS, Llano): When do they really work?
There is one category of cooling pads on the market that actually delivers spectacular results. These are the so-called pressure pads with a sealing chamber.
Instead of ordinary fans, they use a powerful centrifugal turbine and a thick foam seal, against which the underside of the laptop is pressed tightly.
How does it work? The seal creates a sealed chamber beneath the laptop. The turbine forces air through at such high pressure that it literally blows it out through the computer’s factory-fitted heat sinks and ventilation slots.
Real-world results: A drop in component temperatures of between 10°C and as much as 18°C, allowing the processor to maintain maximum Turbo clock speeds without thermal throttling.
What’s the catch?
Price: They cost between 300 and over 500 zł.
Noise: At full speed, the fan sounds like an industrial vacuum cleaner. Gaming without well-insulated headphones becomes a nightmare.
Regular cleaning: This cooling pad acts as an air filter; if it doesn’t have a built-in dust filter, within a few weeks it will clog the inside of your laptop with all the dust from your desk.
An overview of cooling solutions for laptops
| Solution | Cost | Temperature reduction (CPU/GPU) | Noise level | Impact on 1% Low FPS |
| Laptop placed flat on a table | 0 zł | 0°C (Idle / Throttling) | Loud (stock fans) | Frame drops and stuttering |
| Standard raising of the rear (e.g. blocks/feet) | 10 – 30 zł | 3°C – 5°C | No change | Light stabilisation |
| Cheap USB pad (RGB) | 50 – 120 zł | 1°C – 3°C | Slight hum | Almost imperceptible |
| Pressure pad with seal | 300 – 500 zł | 10°C – 18°C | Very loud (like a hairdryer) | Large (no throttling) |
| System optimisation with SmoothWizard | A fraction of the cost of the hardware | 5°C – 10°C cooler at start-up | Quieter (fans slow down) | Maximum (constant frame time) |
A hidden problem: Your system is overheating your laptop before you even launch the game.
Before you spend a few hundred zlotys on a roaring fan, it’s worth asking yourself: why does your laptop’s processor need to be running at full throttle in the first place?
Most gamers forget that in gaming laptops, the processor has to share the same copper heat pipes with the graphics card. This means that every unnecessary percentage point of CPU load automatically heats up the graphics chip as well!
Whilst you’re gaming, the factory-configured Windows, running in the background:
It constantly compresses and decompresses RAM (Memory Compression), forcing the CPU to run at high voltage.
It triggers task schedules, file indexing and telemetry transmission at precisely the moment when the case temperature is already at its peak.
It allows messengers, launchers and background processes to jump between all cores, preventing the processor from switching to cooler power states.
How can you manage temperatures in a laptop with SmoothWizard?
Rather than trying to force-cool a red-hot laptop with an external fan, a far more intelligent approach is to cut off the source of unnecessary heat at the Windows system level itself.
This is exactly what the SmoothWizard tool does:
1. Disabling RAM compression (for 16 GB+).
In the Basic Optimisation tab, SmoothWizard disables the system’s mindless compaction of data in memory. The processor stops wasting power on compressing background files, which immediately reduces idle temperatures and takes a few precious watts of heat off the cooling system.
2. Dedicated core profiles (CPU Affinity).
The core affinity module reserves the fastest physical cores for the game itself, relegating Discord, the browser and peripherals to auxiliary threads. The absence of chaotic task switching between cores prevents sudden temperature spikes, which usually cause fans to spin up to maximum speed.
3. Pausing background processes in PRO mode (Suspend List).
In the PRO version, the programme completely freezes unnecessary background programmes to 0% CPU and disk usage for the duration of the game. Less work for the processor means lower temperatures inside the case – the laptop does not reach the 90°C limit, ensuring that in-game clock speeds remain stable without the need for expensive accessories.
4. Mobile control via your phone (SmoothWizard Companion),
Instead of guessing whether your laptop is overheating again, simply launch the mobile app on your smartphone. Connected via your local Wi-Fi, your phone shows you real-time core temperatures, clock speeds and component load. You can see in black and white exactly how the system is performing whilst gaming – without having to install heavy-duty on-screen overlays.
Summary: To buy or not to buy?
If you’re on a tight budget: Don’t buy cheap cooling pads for 50 zł. Instead, buy some small laptop risers or position it so that the back of the case is raised 3 cm above the desk – you’ll get exactly the same benefit for free.
If you have a generous budget and play with headphones: A solid pressure pad with a seal (e.g. IETS GT500 or Llano) will effectively reduce temperatures by a dozen or so degrees, though this comes at the cost of significant noise.
A must for everyone: Optimise your operating system. Install SmoothWizard, kill background processes, disable memory compression and block unnecessary Windows services.
The best cooling is the kind that the processor doesn’t need to run at all, as it doesn’t waste energy on things unrelated to your game.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Does keeping your laptop on your lap or on the bed damage the hardware?
Yes, it’s the quickest way to overheat the components. A soft duvet, blanket or trousers will immediately block the lower ventilation openings, cutting off the flow of cool air. A gaming laptop should always be used on a hard, flat surface.
How can you tell if it’s the thermal paste that needs replacing, rather than a system fault?
If you lift the back of the laptop and, after optimising the system in SmoothWizard, the temperatures on the desktop (with no games running) still shoot up to 80 or even 90°C in no time, it is most likely that the factory-applied thermal paste has dried out or the cooling system has become clogged with a thick layer of dust.
