Zalman ZM-NC3500 Plus Notebook Cooler Review

The main test that will be run on this notebook cooler concerns its cooling performance. We will also test the acoustics of the cooling performance, the quality of the audio and the speed of the USB hub.

To test the cooling performance the notebook cooler will be placed on a hard flat surface which in this case is a desk. An Acer Aspire 5551-A notebook will be placed onto the notebook cooler whilst plugged in to mains power. 15 minute idle temperatures will be recorded on the desktop before proceeding to open Prime95. After running Prime95 for 15 minutes the maximum load temperatures will be recorded. This process will then be repeated without the notebook cooler to ascertain the extra cooling performance the notebook cooler offers. Temperature recordings will be taken from the CPU and GPU to see how the cooling works on the various parts of the notebook. Hard drive temperatures tend to be hit and miss as it is more reflective of how long a notebook has been on not how well the notebook is cooled. Testing will be done with the fan at 100%. Note we will also record the acoustics of the notebook cooler by using a decibel meter to check the noise output from a distance of 10cm.

Audio testing can only ever be subjective, but there will be the use of three different scenarios to see the quality of the audio. Gaming audio quality, video clip audio quality and music audio quality.

The four port USB hub will also be briefly tested by connecting four USB storage drives to it and running Crystal Disk Mark on each. This will then show us the maximum bandwidth each port delivers and therefore the overall USB bandwidth provided by the hub.