Hardware Will this melt my laptop?

[Boogieboo6]

I have a desk in my room. It's wooden and there's a drawer in the front. Inside the drawer, I wanted to keep my laptop. There will be a little bit of exposure to the open air through the gap my cables stick out of. The drawer isn't snug around the laptop, there's plenty of room to move it around. Will there be enough air to keep my laptop cool? Is there a program I can use to monitor the temperature and have a warning pop up if it's getting too hot? If there is, what temperature should I be looking to avoid?

 

[WiiUBricker]

It depends on what laptop you have.

 

[Boogieboo6]

It depends on what laptop you have.

It's an ASUS laptop. There's a sticker on it that says X550J. I'm unsure where to find the more specific number. I'll get back to you when I find it.

 

[Deleted User]

Did

It's an ASUS laptop. There's a sticker on it that says X550J. I'm unsure where to find the more specific number. I'll get back to you when I find it.

that's ur laptop? https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/X550JK/

 

[Boogieboo6]

Did

that's ur laptop? https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/X550JK/

It's either that or the JF version. It looks the same in the pictures and the information lines up.

 

[MiiDontLikeU]

You should be able to monitor your temperatures with CPUID HWMonitor.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

[Boogieboo6]

Using HWMonitor, my current temperature is 66C, my minimum was 64C and my max was 76C. My laptop is sticking halfway out of my desk so it can actually connect to wifi right now. How's it looking so far? Any predictions as to how it'll work completely inside the drawer? Just yesterday I had my laptop shut off at random. I'm reading this could be a sign of overheating. It felt fine though and it wasn't even in my desk. This random shutdown has never happened before. Could it be a one off thing?

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Using HWMonitor, my current temperature is 66C, my minimum was 64C and my max was 76C. My laptop is sticking halfway out of my desk so it can actually connect to wifi right now. How's it looking so far? Any predictions as to how it'll work completely inside the drawer? Just yesterday I had my laptop shut off at random. I'm reading this could be a sign of overheating. It felt fine though and it wasn't even in my desk. This random shutdown has never happened before. Could it be a one off thing?

I wouldn't be particularly worried unless you're getting frequent shutdowns and/or the temps are regularly going over 80*C

 

[raystriker]

Cooling basics 101, you need air flow.
Just having gaps won't be enough, plus wood is a terrible conductor. So that's that.
You could buy stuff like USB fans and figure something out to establish an air flow of sorts.

Your laptop might work just fine on the surface, but if you don't figure out a way to cool it, it will die a premature death.

 

[Boogieboo6]

I'll give TPfancontrol a shot. It does seem to be a bad idea to keep it in my desk though. I'll keep observing it and make a decision based on how hot it gets. I was hoping there was enough air and my built in laptop fan was strong enough to keep it cool. Maybe with TPfancontrol, I can make the fan run faster than usual and keep the system cool even in my desk drawer. It's just wishful thinking though.

 

[Boogieboo6]

Can you show us what your setup looks like? Its hard to picture what your desk looks like for me

I'm getting a powerline network adapter tomorrow and then I can keep my laptop fully inside the desk. For the past 2 days, it has been halfway outside the drawer. I could post a picture tomorrow when everything's set up how I want it.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

I'm getting a powerline network adapter tomorrow and then I can keep my laptop fully inside the desk. For the past 2 days, it has been halfway outside the drawer. I could post a picture tomorrow when everything's set up how I want it.

If you're going to shut the drawer, I'd recommend cutting a large hole in the back or bottom and installing something like this

 

[Boogieboo6]

If you're going to shut the drawer, I'd recommend cutting a large hole in the back or bottom and installing something like this

Cutting holes in the desk was something I had hoped to avoid. What I just found out about my desk is that there's no bottom plate in it. What I mean is that the drawer has a bottom and everything, but to the left and right of the drawer is open space. You can even reach a finger inside the drawer through the bottom of the desk! I took a whole bunch of pictures to describe what I'm saying. Give me a second and I'll edit this post with the pictures.

Spoiler: Pictures

That gap from the wires is actually a lot smaller than I thought it was. There is the whole bottom to use for air so maybe it could work? I think it'd be best to just try it and monitor the temps. If they're consistently above 80 or really close to it, I'll switch back to having my laptop on the desk.

 

[Pen]

It may be possible to keep the laptop there. Sometimes I leave my notebook in a drawer too. When you open the drawer after a long day, you can feel a huge temperature difference that dissolves very quickly.
Modern laptops try to clock down the cpu frequency, when they get to hot. If this does not help, the thermal throttling slows down the cpu with a big impact. I think it sets in by about 90°C.

I would suggest to try it, when you are near, let the notebook do some things, monitor the temperatures from another computer and let it do it's job für some hours. If everything stays green, there should be no problem.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Cutting holes in the desk was something I had hoped to avoid. What I just found out about my desk is that there's no bottom plate in it. What I mean is that the drawer has a bottom and everything, but to the left and right of the drawer is open space. You can even reach a finger inside the drawer through the bottom of the desk! I took a whole bunch of pictures to describe what I'm saying. Give me a second and I'll edit this post with the pictures.

Spoiler: Pictures

View attachment 56804 View attachment 56805 View attachment 56806 View attachment 56807 View attachment 56808

That gap from the wires is actually a lot smaller than I thought it was. There is the whole bottom to use for air so maybe it could work? I think it'd be best to just try it and monitor the temps. If they're consistently above 80 or really close to it, I'll switch back to having my laptop on the desk.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, and the pictures aren't exactly clear, but from the sound of it there might be enough air flow to give the laptop some cooling.
On the other hand, laptops generally have pretty bad cooling as it is, what with the space constraints and all, and putting more strain on that cooling system is probably not a good idea.
Maybe it would help things if there is enough space to install a fan in the gap in the drawer (which I'm still not sure what looks like since the pictures don't show it), it would help air flow a lot better than the laptop fan can do on its own.
Laptop fans are really designed for open air, they do a sufficient job at moving air from one end of the laptop to the other, cooling the components inside of it just enough to keep the temperatures within safe limits and rarely much more than that. Expecting it to be able to suck air into an enclosed compartment even if that compartment has small gaps is asking a lot from it.

 

[Pen]

Another Idea: Turn the notebook around so it lies on it's cover. By this, you leave the hot bottom more space to release the heat to the air because the wood isn't a good thermoconducter.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Another Idea: Turn the notebook around so it lies on it's cover. By this, you leave the hot bottom more space to release the heat to the air because the wood isn't a good thermoconducter.

But on the other hand, that might cause the screen to get excessively hot, which isn't good either.
I've heard that you shouldn't leave a laptop closed and on because of that very reason, and I've noticed my laptop's screen getting very hot when left on with the screen closed, something I don't generally do but sometimes when left in sleep mode it wakes up on its own so these days I just tend not to close the screen at all unless it's turned completely off.

 

[Pen]

The laptop might be designed to emit it's heat through the keyboard. It may get a bit warm. I can't tell you, if its harmful or not. You have to decide on your own, if you want to expose your display to such temperatures. I would say, if it feels a bit warm if you touch it with your hand, it's not a problem.