I often find myself finishing up a project at the last minute and leave my computer running and crunching numbers during my commute. A co-worker told me it’s a bad idea to carry a laptop while it’s running. Is she right? Rick’s answer: Yes, I’m afraid your co-worker is right, Carla. Laptops need proper air circulation or else they’ll eventually overheat and burn up. The damage done to the internal components can be gradual, but if they keep over-heating they WILL fail at some point. Another danger of using a laptop while you’re on the move is a potential head crash, depending on the brand and model of the hard drive. The hard drive’s read/write heads float just thousandths of an inch over the spinning platters. If you hit a pothole or speed bump too hard the heads can easily crash into the platters causing your drive to fail. Most modern laptop hard drives are built to withstand a moderate “thud”, but some are not. Why take a chance? Bottom line: I believe you’d be wise to heed the advice of your co-worker. It really is best to transport a bagged laptop only after it has been completely shut down, put to sleep or placed into hibernation mode. Bonus tip: It’s easy to set your laptop to automatically shut down when you close the lid. This post explains how.
Unlike most desktop PCs, a laptop's hardware components are in close proximity to each other with little room for air movement. Because they're prone to overheating, watching for the signs of thermal stress and protecting the laptop's fans from blockage protect your device against irreparable damage. A laptop that's too hot can actually scald you. Sony recalled thousands of VAIO laptops because of possible burn hazards. There's also some indication that working with a hot laptop in your lap can potentially cause male infertility. Regarding the device itself, operating a laptop at very high temperatures leads to failed hardware components (video cards, motherboards, memory modules, hard drives and more are susceptible to damage) and decreases the lifespan of your computer. It can also be a fire hazard; faulty laptops have actually burned down houses. If your laptop feels hot and shows any of the problems below, chances are it's overheating or getting there:
These issues could be from other causes, but they may point to an overheating issue, especially in combination with the laptop feeling more than warm.
If your laptop is overheating, take steps immediately to cool your laptop to prevent further overheating damage. If your laptop is just plain hot, find out if it's running too hot by using a free program to check the internal laptop temperature and find its optimal temperature. Some system information tools support temperature readings too. Maintaining one of those programs on your computer offers the added benefit of letting you check up other stats about your computer and not just the temperature of the internal components. When your laptop overheats, prompt action is warranted. The simplest solution is to just take a break from using it. Power it down and put it in a cool, dry location until it's completely cool to the touch, then wait ten more minutes. Keep the laptop positioned on a flat, hard surface while you're using it. Sitting it on any soft surface (your lap, your bed, the couch, etc.) for an extended period of time can block the fan and make it harder for the internal parts to remain cool, particularly when you've put a blanket on your lap. Replace the battery if it's unable to hold a charge for very long. Defective batteries usually just wear out, but sometimes a battery with impact or thermal damage overheats—sometimes, catastrophically. Try not to use your laptop while it's charging. Many laptops will run off battery all the time, and the charger tops it off. The issue is that draining the battery (using the laptop) causes some heat, and charging it can cause much more. Combine that with the heat of the components (CPU, etc.) and a perfectly functional laptop has heat issues during in-use charging. Some things to keep in mind:
You can also put your laptop into power save mode (from the Power Options Control Panel applet) to prevent it from using more power. This mode restricts certain background tasks, reducing processor draw and energy consumption and thus minimizing heat generation. Similarly, shut down programs that use lots of system resources. Something that's using most of your RAM or CPU, or is always writing to the hard drive, forces those components to work, which can make them hot over time Consider buying a laptop cooler to promote circulation and heat exchange, and blow out any dust or debris that's accumulated inside the fan intakes.
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Tell us why! Change this simple setting to ensure that your PC doesn't wake up unexpectedly. Click to enlargeIf you own a laptop, you might have experienced "hot bag" syndrome. You put the sleeping laptop into your travel bag and then hours later, discover that it woke up at some point and has been madly using up your battery (and heating up your bag) as it tries to do whatever task it woke up for. On a PC running Windows 10, one simple solution is to change the behavior of the system so that closing the lid causes the system to hibernate instead of sleeping, saving the system's state to a hibernation file. A hibernating system won't wake up until you tell it to, which means you can count on your bag staying cool and your battery fully charged. The trade-off, of course, is that getting back to work takes a bit longer as the system loads the contents of the hibernation file instead of resuming from sleep. But on a modern laptop with an SSD, that difference is typically only 10 seconds or so. To make the change, open Control Panel (or use the search box on the taskbar) and search for Power Options. That opens the dialog box shown in the upper right of this article. From the list of links on the left, click Choose what closing the lid does. The options available under the Power Button And Lid Settings section might look a little different depending on how your PC maker implemented this feature, but every modern laptop has the option to define settings for When I close the lid. Change the behavior under On Battery to Hibernate and then save your changes. The next time you close the PC's lid (or, in the case of a Surface Pro, fold the Type Cover up over the screen), your PC will be guaranteed to keep its cool. Previous tip: Create a full image backup using this hidden tool Next week: Another Windows 10 tip from Ed Bott |
