Review on Thermaltake Massive V20 Laptop Cooling Pad with Steel Mesh Panel, Adjustable 200mm Blue LED Fan and Speed Control for 10-17 inch Notebook CL-N004-PL20BL-A by Barry Shaker

I was looking for a solution to cool my Asus AC3100 router and it worked. Typically, a router does not require active cooling. As long as the router is in an open area where air can circulate, you're fine. Most new router processors are designed to work in temperatures between 70 and 80 degrees Celsius and even slightly higher without too much trouble. I had the problem that the indoor space where I store my router is always warm. Although I place my router outdoors, the ambient temperature in the room increased the router's CPU temperature, which typically exceeded 80 degrees Celsius during heavy usage (gaming and streaming). The computer nerd in me had to fix that. After seeing some pretty ugly hardware hacks, I figured a laptop cooling pad would do the trick. It was cheap enough to try and it worked. The single large fan more than covers the area of my router and blows air into the vents on the bottom of the router. Within 15 minutes of installing the router and turning on the fan, the router's idle CPU temperature dropped by almost 20 degrees Celsius. The CPU temperature now fluctuates between 49-55 degrees Celsius even under heavy load. At full power, the fan is fairly quiet. I'll notice some noise if everything in the room is quiet about 10 feet away, but it's certainly not overwhelming or bothersome. I've never turned the fan on less than full speed, but you can tweak it. When the fan speed drops completely, the fan turns off. The device runs via USB, but I plugged it into my own outlet using a cell phone adapter. It can absolutely be powered by my router via the USB port, but I'd rather avoid the potential interference that can come with it. The LEDs can be turned off if you don't like them. Please note that the entire device occupies a fairly large area and works best on hard, flat surfaces. As with any active fan that draws air from the bottom of the unit, do not place the unit on a carpet. It's just asking for trouble. If you have a router that gets too hot and also venting your router from below will help. Inexpensive, well built and quiet.