Laptop gets warm / hot when lid is closed (R3)

Has anyone noticed when the lid is closed even though the screen is off and fans are running and the cooling pad is beneath the laptop it gets exceptionally warm. This is while not doing anything just sitting on the desk. Doesn't get warm if the lid is open only closed. Is this "normal"? I usually keep the lid closed when I'm not in the room using the laptop to keep dust in the keyboard to a minimum. Thanks.

 

Noticed same thing last week. One of my son's left the computer on all night, as it seems to not like to sleep when you shut the lid now, and noted how hot it was. No program was running and screen was off.

I read something about the keyboard acting as an intake vent on the R3 which would make sense.

 

Ah cool, thought it might be something like this. Well if I must keep the screen open any suggestions on screen locked vs no and what to set screen off timer to? I'm using the balanced plan. And on sleep, yeah I manually sleep it every night, turned off the lid shut part as I shut the lid when boys come bounding into the room most times.

 

Could be also the wifi / Lan card. mine get warm when in use. but i don't know the location of it insiede the R3.

 

Not that this is a huge surprise.. but heat rises and as you can see in a lot of reviews your top case will get a bit warmer as your machine runs. When you close the lid your are essentially trapping that heat, and added heat from your screen (even off because its still cooling). Those two things will make your computer feel hotter, because it is.

I don't really think this is to be of great worry, your machine should turn off if it gets too hot, either that or shut down the machine, and let it cool down then close... but lets face it... no one wants to wait

 

This is actually pretty typical for all laptops, though for laptops with less high-end (i.e. hot) hardware you might not notice it as much. The air space between the keyboard is typically used to passively cool the components below. I've seen settings on some laptops that allow you to set different cooling profiles based on if the screen is open or closed; for example passive only when on battery and lid is open, but active (uses fans) when on battery and lid is closed.