G73 ventilation with lid closed?

the G73 is supposed to suck cold air thru the speaker-thingy below the screen, right?

since i'm downloading torrents during the night, i want to leave my laptop running, but with the lid closed to avoid dust falling on the keys and screen.

anyone know if it will make it difficult for the ventilation to work properly?

i think it probably doesn't need too much cool air when it's idling like this, only when under stress. what do you guys think?

 

I've always run mine with the lid closed since I have an external monitor. I've run Furmark with it closed and temps haven't been out of the ordinary.

 

Instructions say that don't close the lid while on external monitor

 

That's (in practice) only for models that aren't properly cooled in the first place since the reduced airflow may cause problems. I haven't come across any issues with any machines that are designed properly. My last laptop worked with the screen closed for about 2 years straight and there were absolutely no issues. Also, at work, we have a number of laptops used in docking stations (lid closed) running 8+ hours day/week and I haven't seen a single case of something bad happening because the screen was closed.

 

I forgot my G73 running furmark (the kids did help...) with the lid closed only to come back 3 hours later and... everything was fine. Temperatures almost identical to lid open (low 90's)

 

I always run my G73 with the lid closed when on external monitor/tv. No problems whatever. There is plenty of space for air to get into the unit even while the lid is closed. Experiment: close the lid and hold it up to a bright light sideways. See there is an air space, which is even larger where the speakers are. If there was a significant draw of air from the keyboard area, to the extent that it was perceptible, it would still be enough room, but the draw is far less, basically imperceptible. But you are free to worry anyway!

 

There is little, if any, airflow that would otherwise be blocked by the lid. Most of the air gets sucked in underneath the laptop, this is why elevating either the back or front improves heat dissipation performance. If you've ever taken your G73 apart you'd notice that the keyboard is not perforated; so no air gets in there. The speaker grill is really the only part of the top panel that may allow some airflow, but it's probably minimal.

 

Common misconception, there is barely airflow under the speaker grill, a lot of the air is actually pulled in from behind the screen. Right where you see the speaker mesh start to angle downwards towards the back, you'll see larger holes, and these holes have the same airflow whether you close the lid or not.

 

I had wondered the same thing about proper airflow while the lid is closed. I sometimes hook up to my home theater via hdmi and I found a lot of Bluray movies wouldn't work when I had two screens active so I had to close the laptop to watch them on the big screen. I emailed Asus support to make sure there wouldn't be any problems with cooling and they assured me it's okay to run my G73 with the lid closed. All of the info so far on this thread seems very accurate.

Cheers.

 

Just in case you didn't know - you can use Fn-F8 to cycle through LCD, HDMI, and LCD+HDMI modes.