what's a "dangerous" temperature for a laptop?

fsk · Post by **fsk** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:28 pm

when u can smell burning plastic?

joesapo · Post by **joesapo** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:13 pm

Yeah, you gotta be careful that your laptop gets proper air throughput or bad things could happen.

My P4-3GHz (one of the hottest laptop CPUs made, IMO) didn't get proper circulation and fried my hard drive and battery. As hot as that bastard got, I'm lucky that is all that was damaged.

Most laptops are relatively simple to open up and clean the dust out of the air filters. Highly recommend getting one of those laptop stands as well if your laptop has fans under it.

Here's mine: Kensington LiftOff ~$20 - cheap and portable

dirtystudios · Post by **dirtystudios** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:13 am

I just replaced the logic board in my MacBook Pro (did it myself too, woohoo!). They just announced a new MLB design that fixes the "processor whine" and the heat issue, and boy does it ever. It's a warranty covered repair, so there's no reason not to.

This thing runs sooooo much cooler and quiter now, where before it would actually burn you if you touched anywhere between the keyboard and screen after any moderate to heavy processing.

Highly recommended.

k

quandry · Post by **quandry** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:27 am

peeddrroo wrote:just one word if you're experiencing laptop heat problem.
first thing, get a dry air blower, and blow your fans/heatsink, even from the outside of the laptop (no need to tear it open).

i did it, and the max temperature decreased by about 10°C!

good to know in this heatwave period....

I think most laptops eventually suffer from heat issues due to lint, fibers, and dust building up on the heatsink, preventing the fans from being very effecient. There are three options to clean them--vacuum stuff out, blow it out with compressed air or a hairdryer, or to remove the heatsink and clean it off. The best and most effective is the remove and clean, but some laptops make it exceedingly difficult to get in there and do it--often you have to take the whole back off with like 20+ screws. Some (like mine) fortunately have a little cover plate over the heatsink, for easy access.

Sucking or blowing to get the crap out can work, but it can also be bad, depending on the fan/heatsink/exhaust design. Sometimes trying to vacuum from the outside through the exaust can clog stuff up in the heatsink worse than it was. Blowing air in from the exhaust could blow all sorts of dust into your computer. Blowing over the fans and heatsink might help, but from what I've seen, larger fibers start to form a mat over the heatsink fins, and blowing air, even fast air from a hairdryer, can't really force this mat through the whole heatsink, though it may help some.

Anyhow, heat is a problem with laptops. Laptop stands can help, but they're not really getting at fixing the root of the problem, which is dirt and fibers. Get rid of these and you'll notice a significant difference.

Ryan

quandry · Post by **quandry** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:30 am

joesapo wrote:Yeah, you gotta be careful that your laptop gets proper air throughput or bad things could happen.

My P4-3GHz (one of the hottest laptop CPUs made, IMO) didn't get proper circulation and fried my hard drive and battery. As hot as that bastard got, I'm lucky that is all that was damaged.

Most laptops are relatively simple to open up and clean the dust out of the air filters. Highly recommend getting one of those laptop stands as well if your laptop has fans under it.

Here's mine: Kensington LiftOff ~$20 - cheap and portable

my buddies HP 3.0 like yours actually caught on fire and was smoking, literally melting the power supply plug into place!!! He got a brand new box with a P4m inside, but yeah, P4's in laptops get hot!!! I clean my heatsink about every 9 months.

Ryan