I haven’t worked out the math yet, so this is either pure genius or yet another indicator of imminent societal collapse.  My laptop heats up enough to give first-degree burns when under heavy use, and when the fans run, they ruin sound quality for Skype, which I’m about to use.  Today’s solution is a stainless steel surgical tray on my lap, two flexible freezer packs on top of it, and the laptop on top of them.

In terms of efficiency, my freezer consumed an unknown-to-me amount of electricity to freeze and maintain the temperature of the freezer packs, which are good for maybe an hour, after which they’ll need to be re-frozen.  A laptop cooler tray with large slow-moving fans would cool quietly as well, but that has startup cost (the tray) in my case, and it uses electricity as it runs, too.

Could the laptop cooler tray possibly be more efficient than my Energy Star freezer?