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Like wings on a skydiving Penguin whose parachute fails to open, or racing tires on a 1971 Ford Pinto, Evercool's new Dr. Cool router cooler has us wondering if such a device is necessary. Even Evercool appears a bit uncertain. The company says its Dr. Cool device was designed with three features in mind, which include branding, creative aesthetics, and effective cooling. Notice that cooling is listed last, not because it isn't capable, but does your router really need a blast of cold air?
Perhaps if you live in a particularly toasty part of the world, or for added peace of mind when your central air conditioning goes belly up during the dog days of summer, a router cooler could come in handy. Here's what Evercool has to say about it:
"Dr. Cool provides a cooling solution to address overheating problems. Using one 8cm long-life fan it provides sufficient airflow to achieve silent cooling, effectively dissipating the heat. It also helps prevent damage caused by heat by long periods of operation and extend the router's or IP sharing device's life expectancy."
The crab-like cooler using a retractable clip design that Evercool says makes it compatible with different sizes of routers and IP sharing devices. Maybe more useful is the fact that it also supports 2.5-inch portable hard drives, tablet PCs, netbooks, and other accessories.
No word on when it will ship or for how much, but in the meantime, check out this YouTube video.
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mdahlke4@gmail.com
April 26, 2011 at 10:15am
You don't need that cooler.
My router never gets over 85. I've NOTHING to cool it. I've got one of those Cisco flat spaceship looking models.
Setting it Horizontal can keep heat trapped in it though. I keep mine Vertical. It's on a plastic display stand. Like you might use for holding up pictures or decorative plates.
Plus with that fan, you're just going to draw more dust/dirt TO your router. Doesn't matter if the fan is blowing air ontop of it, or up and away from it. Its now going to be part of the air flow around it and might even kill your router sooner by clogging it with dust particles.
Steelwells
April 26, 2011 at 6:39am
And since I have lost a few of them (as have customers of mine) I have adopted the inexpensive laptop or netbook cooler to keep them working. It has made a profound difference in my setup - fewer router reboots (from 1 a week to 1 every month) and the general flakiness is down as well.
I'm using a Linksys WRT310 at this time - not sure how other router brands fair, but if yours is hot to the touch, a device like this might be a smart investment. Probably cheaper than having to purchase a new router...
Theatre Booth Guy
April 26, 2011 at 4:52am
In the past, I've had a few Linksys products that were designed to stack. Sadly, even unstacked, they would overheat and have an early death. Somehow, it seems wrong to need extra cooling for routers and cable modems.
Ghok
April 25, 2011 at 5:13pm
That's actually a really funny video.
I used to have a router that would overheat, especially in the summer. I don't know about the fan, I would think a good heatsink would probably be enough.
ShyLinuxGuy
April 25, 2011 at 9:52am
In a matter of fact they do need cooling of some sorts. I have a Linksys wrt160n which is very thin and aesthetic, almost looks like a alien spaceship. It gets too hot though because of its thinness. It gets weirded out every once in a while (very likely due to the heat) and I wanted to try ddwrt on it, but it's incompatible.
mdahlke4@gmail.com
April 26, 2011 at 10:29am
Make your router vertical. Get a plastic display stand. Like you might use for holding up pictures or decorative plates. Think i got mine for less then $10 at Target.
Cache
April 25, 2011 at 9:25am
Cheaper, and only marginally more attractive, is just opening the top of your router, bolt a spare fan on top, wire the power in 'under the hood', and it it take care of business itself. It's not terribly elegant, but it's dirt cheap, highly effective, and most routers out there will never win an award for beauty in the first place.
After I installed a fan on my constantly hot Linksys WRT310, I never had to worry about temperatures. This monstrousity looks like a 3D version of a Space Invader.
Belboz99
April 25, 2011 at 6:25am
How to cool a Router:
1) Dedicate one of your PC's as a Router either by installing routing functionality such as Arno IPTables Firewall on Linux, or going with a Linux distro built for the purpose as well as a 2nd NIC for the LAN port. (Use a switch for additional ports).
2) Install at least (2) 200mm fans in the case, and a nice Arctic Cooling model on the CPU. Or, if you feel cooling is really that necessary for your Router, throw a waterblock on the CPU, heck, put a waterblock on the RAM and GPU if you feel it's that important!
3) Relax, knowing that you have one of the most powerful and stable routers possible with maximum cooling capability, without even having to buy a Router!
Dan O.
satrain18
April 25, 2011 at 7:40am
Now you have to buy or build a whole PC, spend even more money watercooling it, have to leave it running 24/7, and watch your power bill skyrocket.
Belboz99
April 25, 2011 at 7:50am
Most people who read MaximumPC have at least 1 spare PC lying around...
An old single-core Pentium 4 is more than sufficient, it's probably got far more power than your average Linksys or Netgear.
The PC I use is made almost entirely from old parts passed down from my primary desktop.
The power usage isn't bad for what it does, because it doesn't just route, it's also our Wireless AP, our firewall, our webserver for 3 websites, our email server, and our HTPC.
You don't have to do everything like ours though, if you have a PC that's already serving files, adding routing functionality just makes even more use out of it.
eastbayrae
April 25, 2011 at 5:52am
My mouse and keyboard cooler are going to market in the next 90 days! We have a mousepad cooler in the works too!
Danthrax66
April 25, 2011 at 1:48pm
This is actually useful especially for the Asus router shown in the video mine started to melt (I could smell hot plastic).
