Making Your Targus Laptop Cooling Pad User Friendly

The cooling pad works well to cool your laptop, but the ungainly power cord that sticks out the front can easily break, or get in the way. In this instructable, I'll show you how do disassemble, modify, and reassemble your cooling pad to maximize space, and as an added bonus: how to install a USB hub to the unit will come next. This unit costs about $30. Targus makes one with a built in USB hub, but it costs about ten bucks more.

Step 1: Disassembly

First, unplug the power cable.
Remove the rubber grips from the four corners on the bottom side of the cooling pad
Remove the screws.
Gently crack the cooling pad open at the seem around the edge.

Step 2: Modify

Unscrew the circuit board from the pad.
cut a small hole for the USB cable to run through through the small support fin.
Cut the wires to the fan, as close to the white clip as you can, and then separate the male end of the plug.
Solder the wires back to the two prongs, making sure to keep the poles correct ( you may need to plug the pad into your laptop and touch the wires to get them right)
Remount the circuit board, this time facing into the pad (180 rotation)

Step 3: Reassemble

Plug the USB cable into the circuit board, and run it through the hole you made, and out the side of the pad (you may want to consider the convince of which side to run the cable out of based on the design of your laptop. 
Place the top back on.
Replace the screws and rubber grips.

Congrats, you now have a new sexy, even-better-a-fied laptop cooling pad