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Can copper coins prevent your laptop from overheating?

We don't know if it works, but this life hack appears to be so money. You may need to raid Grandma's 1970s-era coin purse to get the right kind of pennies though.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper

Time to cash in on a cool way to keep your laptop from overheating. This video from Science Channel shows how to create a heat sink by stacking copper coins on the computer, a tip the host credits to a Japanese Twitter user.

"Copper is more thermally conductive than material most laptops are made of, drawing away heat to cool the machine," the channel's video explains.

But you can't just go grab a bunch of pennies out of your kid's piggy bank.

US pennies were made of pure copper from 1793 to 1837, then varied over the years, according to the US Mint. Since 1982, US pennies have been made of 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper-plated zinc, which is no good for this experiment. Look for the pennies from 1962-1981, the video recommends.

IFL Science also points out that US quarters, nickels, and $1 coins also have enough copper to suffice.

We can't vouch for the results, but if you have a couple of bucks worth of coins, why not give it a try?