Hardware Bistro

Product: NC
Manufacturer: Arctic Cooling
Supplied by: Arctic Cooling
Price: 31.5USD/RM108
Launch Date: Nov 2009

 

Arctic Cooling is pretty famous in computer cooling industry especially in graphic card sector as most of the third-party VGA makers have been using their coolers for their graphic cards rather than the reference coolers. Besides being successful in graphic card sector, Arctic Cooling is also trying to step into other markets where notebook cooler is one of their targets; Arctic Cooling NC.

 

Company Profile

ARCTIC COOLING is a privately owned company founded in 2001 with headquarters in Switzerland, offices in Hong Kong and the USA and production facilities in Asia. The ARCTIC COOLING team consists of international highly educated people with business, technical and communicational skills. The attitude to work is based o n Swiss principles of innovative spirit and high standards of workmanship for which it is recognized internationally.

ARCTIC COOLING´s core competencies are multifarious including systematic noise reduction, copper and aluminum heatsink development, customization of thermal solutions, as well as designing quiet fans. More recently quiet and cool PC Cases and Power Supplies have been developed.

 

Features

- 2 ultra quiet 60mm fans with PWM function
- Intelligent fan speed turn from 800 to 1,700 rpm
- USB-powered, no extra batteries / adopters are needed
- 4-port USB hub
- Compact, lightweight, portable, rigid
- Compatible to all notebooks from 12"- 19"

 

Specifications

Package & Contents

 

NC is packed in an Arctic Cooling traditional package; a compact transparent packaging. Such packaging has its own advantages such as compact form, physical weight and size can be measured/feel on the spot but it has to be taken care well else it can be damaged easily.

 

Arctic Cooling NC comes with a simple multi-languages user's manual, USB cable and two pieces of bumper. Basically notebook cooler doesn't require any manual at all but Arctic Cooling NC is a bit unique as the bumpers are required to be installed on appropriate location in order to support the notebook; detail will be shown later.

 

A Closer Look: Arctic Cooling NC

Frankly to say notebook cooler doesn't have any advanced technologies at all but Arctic Cooling NC is something really special and one of its selling points is able to support notebook from 12" to 19"; pretty impressive right as most of the notebook coolers are only able to support 13" to 15" else the design will be terrible. Anyway Arctic Cooling NC comes with two colors; black and grey where our sample here is a grey version; traditional color for AC products.

 

Most of us may not know Arctic Cooling NC is a notebook cooler as it comes with unique design; even we were not able to recognize it is a notebook cooler until we have gone through its profile. The overall dimension of Arctic Cooling NC is just 278 x 96 x 31 mm (L x W x H) and the most fascinating part of this notebook cooker is its weight; 250grams which is still much lighter than most of the plastic or aluminum notebook coolers.

 

Although Arctic Cooling NC is made by plastic material but it is pretty robust and solid; thanks to the well construction. For traditional notebook cooler, cool air will be suck from the bottom and blow toward the notebook but it is not same for Arctic Cooling NC as it is sucking the cool air from the back of the notebook and blow toward the bottom of the notebook; pretty interesting idea and let us find out its performance in later chapter.

For further elaboration, here is the air flow diagram of Arctic Cooling NC.

 

Arctic Cooling NC is equipped by two ultra quiet 60mm 5V DC fans with 0.1A current which delivers 900 to 1700RPM. The motor of these fans are developed in Germany with high quality and built-in fan speed controller which makes Arctic Cooling NC more outstanding and energy efficient than other conventional notebook coolers.

 

Most of the notebook cooler is also served as USB hub and this is same for Arctic Cooling NC; comes with four USB 2.0 ports at the back of the cooler. Besides the 4 x USB ports and 1 x mini USB port, there are a DC input connector, fan speed controller and a blue LED to indicate its power status. The fan speed controller is something pretty interesting for Arctic Cooling NC as it provides greater flexibility in term performance as well as noise.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

Basically there is no rocket science knowledge is needed to setup a notebook cooler as it is an extremely simple device; some models are even just plug and play. Anyway to setup for Arctic Cooling NC, the bumpers need to be installed on the right location to support the notebook from sliding down; need some manual tweaking and try & error.

 

Once everything is setup correctly and it is time to roll. The blue LED will be lighted up once the mini USB port of Arctic Cooling NC is connected with the notebook. The fan speed controller will allow the fan speed adjustment from zero till the maximum. The USB function of Arctic Cooling NC is just same with other USB hub; neither driver nor software is required, just plug & play.

 

Test Bed: 

Notebook: Compaq CQ40-401AX
Processor: AMD Turion X2 Dual Core 2.2GHz
Memory: Kingston 3GB HyperX 666MHz DDR2
Hard Drive: 320GB 2.5" 5400RPM HDD
Graphic Card: 256MB ATI HD3450
Optical Drive: Light Scribe DVD RW
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Notebook Cooler: Arctic Cooling NC
Operating System: Microsoft Window Vista Business
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

 

For the performance benchmark testing of Arctic Cooling NC, we have tested it on HP Compaq and the result is pretty promising. The CPU loading temperature is lowered down around 5°C during full speed and 2°C during low speed; this is pretty impressive compares with other notebook cooling pads as Arctic Cooling NC doesn't come with any giant cooling fan but it is still able to perform as good as others under quiet condition. Besides the processor, other hardware are cooled down as well such as GPU, HDD, memory and so on where the overall lifespan and reliability of the notebook will be enhanced indirectly.

 

Verdicts

It is definitely glad to see Arctic Cooling stepped into other computer peripherals and Arctic Cooling NC is an innovative and effective notebook cooling device. Besides its decent performance, Arctic Cooling NC provides silent operating environment too which is pretty important for today PC. Moreover Arctic Cooling NC is also a USB hub with four USB 2.0 ports and the fan speed controller is an extra selling point especially for those are sensitive with noise. Thanks to Arctic Cooling R&D and marketing teams to deliver such great and reasonable device with only 30USD.

 

Pros:

+ Decent Performance
+ Quiet operating
+ 4 USB 2.0 ports
+ Fan speed controler
+ Light weight & slim
+ Compatible with most of the notebooks

Cons:

- Prefer a clearer installation manual

Thanks to Arctic Cooling for providing this sample for us to review.

 

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