Is it okay to lay laptop above the laptop sleeve?

Hi there, I am not sure if this is the right forum, but I see a lot of Macbook air/pro college students who use their laptop and place the laptop sleeve on the table, and there laptop above it, I know this keep the bottom of the laptop clean, as it is better to clean the sleeve than the laptop itself, but wouldn't it block the vents of the laptop? I wish to do it too, I use the UX31a so the vents are at the bottom of the laptop, would the Asus provided brown sleeve block off the exhaust vents? I just use for normal tasks like browsing the internet or writing a paper.

 

Mac users do that because they are little princesses who don't want to soil their holy machine with a table. That and the fact that there are no vents on the bottom of the laptop.

Now if you do that, you'll be cutting off the only source of fresh air for all of the components of your computer. This could cause the computer to overheat or throttle when you're trying to use it. Don't put your computer on anything fabric that will block your vents, let it breath as it was mean to breath.

 

Always avoid covering vents, you will heat up things like the battery and hdd which will raise the chance of issues. Ae above a good flat surface is ideal.

 

It's best to always have the laptop elevated a bit, but putting the UX31a on the sleeve will most likely inhibit the vents from circulating the air properly. If you do put it on your sleeve, use something that will elevate the laptop from the sleep at least an inch (preferably a little more).

Also, I believe the Macbook Air/Pro has an aluminum alloy chassis, which allows for better heat dissipation.

 

Wait isn't on the UX31a just below the screen, below the ASUS sign, all those holes are vents or no? Not the bar of dots, but the rectangle openings below that.

 

The air intake is on the bottom and the vent is in the hinge area.

To answer the original question, you should not place it on any kind of fabric surface because it will inhibit thermal exchange. The whole case acts like a heatsink, and it is designed to have air movement on the bottom side of the laptop.

 

unless the asus provided sleeve is rigid, then sitting the laptop on it will obviously block the vents. blocking the vents is so obviously a bad idea that the answer to your question is obviously no--unless you don't care about the longevity of your machine.

Sent from my PI39100 using Board Express

 

As all have said it is "best" to have on flat hard surface. The slight clearance created by the 4 footing and keeping the vents unblocked allow the unit to maximize it's thermal cooling characteristics. and as said by a few cloth and soft flexable matarial is not great at dissapating the heat. Vents or no vents I would say this would apply to the Mac's as well.

Now how critical is any of this? Not critical if only done at say the library or school for non extended times. Use something like CPUID/Hardware monitor to check temps. I can garauntee it will not push temps to any critical level doing normal tasks, not gaming or video encoding. But that said the cooler your sustem runs the better even within acceptable ranges.

If I was so concerned about the surface I was about to put notebook on I would have to look at the seat I was about to sit in also and re-evaluate if this is where I even wanna be. One single sheet of paper used like a "placematt" will likey fit nice with your unit protecting it and not interfearing with cooling system.

 

Very great advice guys, and I am liking the sheet of paper, yes I spot check the tables before placing my laptop on, but what is the average temp the UX31a is supposed to run at? My runs at around 45C, and when using internet it bursts into low 50's and then back to around 45C. Is this high temperatures compared to others?

Edit: Also what about gaming? I play some Left 4 Dead 2 while it is charged in, with a cooling stand and 2 fans blowing air into the bottom exhaust vents, and receive 70C - 73C on 70% limited processing power, and when it is on 100% processing power it goes up to 80C - 83C.

 

I think your temps sound fine. It is a very small unit. 50c is 122F I think that is fine. On the gaming I guess that also seems normal from all my experience. Your unit a little different than mine.

 

What temps do you get on your UX32VD?

 

I am about the same, when I run 3DMark I can get a little hotter.

Surfing the net for an extended time right now about 115F. one core drops as low as 105 the other up as high as 120 for brief times both sitting at 113 for a few seconds right now.