BobbyT - thanks for your tip.  That sounds like it's worth experimenting with. 
 
Lucklily for now my laptop is quite quiet.  Really love having Sonar X3 on a laptop and being able to work on it in all sorts of places rather than being tied to one place in my studio setting.

jscomposer It's good practice to keep the OS and Sonar on the main drive, and all your audio and VST libraries, etc, on their own drives.

Yah. On my main system I have the OS and Sonar on the main SSD drive, and the audio data on another. And I could use my USB 3.0 external on the laptop.
Are you putting your libraries on yet an additional drive?

BobbyT
sometimes dust can build up on the fan blades making it even louder when it does come on,i use a can of air and a vac to get as much dust off as possible works great for me.also works on your desktop fans as well.

I'll keep an eye on that. I know on my old PC the blades would get dusty pretty quickly and I would use the can of air on it...carefully. Have always been warned off of putting any vac near the PC.

leebut Too much methane for me.
I'd like my wife to buy me a present, but I think she'd not be amused by what I'd like: a TLM 102/3. 

I think you're confused. She's not supposed to buy you the TLM. You're job is to find a way to get her excited about her receiving one as a gift. And once in a while, you can borrow it if you behave well. :)

mettelus
Another option I have used is to simply put a long lead on tracks you are working on... (like 10-15 seconds), then you can optimize your input mix first and take advantage of cables to (literally) distance yourself from the computer. Then arm/record, and tailor the clip ends in the mix cycle. Having those clip ends is also very useful for noise reduction (i.e. a "clean" long "background sample" to remove from the clip when mixing).

Good idea. With my musical and engineering prowess, I'd probably need about a 3 minute lead to get settled and in place. You think that would be long enough for that background sample? :)   But really, I considered that idea but when recording my vox I want to have the least amount of movement and technical involvement so I can really Be in the song.

chamlin

jscomposer It's good practice to keep the OS and Sonar on the main drive, and all your audio and VST libraries, etc, on their own drives.

Yah. On my main system I have the OS and Sonar on the main SSD drive, and the audio data on another. And I could use my USB 3.0 external on the laptop.
Are you putting your libraries on yet an additional drive?

I actually have all my libraries on a separate computer which acts as a "slave". You should be fine keeping your libraries and audio on the same drive, as long as they're not on the SSD you mentioned.

Every question ever conceived can be answered by GOOGLE!
 
https://www.google.com/search?q=laptop+fan&rlz=1C1BLWB_enUS536US536&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=qQaYUsimGIv7oATYpYDgAw&ved=0CJcBELAE&biw=1920&bih=992
 
If GOOGLE can't answer it, there IS no answer! 

jscomposerYou should be fine keeping your libraries and audio on the same drive, as long as they're not on the SSD you mentioned.

Thanks for the clarity!

I use a wireless small USB Keyboard/Trackpad and mouse with my lappy based recording rig. I can take the wireless stuff far away from the lappy to escape noise (even in the next room) if it's a problem with vocals or acoustic instruments.  I forget the model numbers but Logitec has a series that can share one USB wireless dongle among multiple devices. It is amazingly useful and all them work at the same time. You can use either keyboard and any/all of the trackpads and mouse interchangeably. 
 
Actually I did the same with my desktop system as well.
 
--Bob

Most wireless keyboards use no encryption. They use only a an 8 bit xor which means anyone with 1/2 a brain and a cantenna can read everything you type.
 
I thought a wireless keyboard was cool, but I'm not that comfortable with the neighbors kid knowing my bank password.
 
Just keep it in mind when you're doing more than music.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/12/wireless-keyboard-encryption-easily-broken-say-researchers/
some are properly encrypted...
http://news.techworld.com/security/3284218/new-microsoft-wireless-keyboard-gets-128-bit-encryption/