Testament to M1530's great ventalation: I left it running in it's case...

For reasons I still don't know, I told my laptop to hibernate one day last week and the screen faded to black as normal, but didn't actually hibernate - it kept running even with the lid shut and just stayed on the login screen.

I then put it in it's clothy case and into my backpack, into the trunk of a fairly warm car for 2 hours.

When I reached for my backpack afterwards, I could feel the heat through the other compartment. I pulled out the sleeve the laptop was in, and it was hot. When I took out my dear M1530, it was tremendously hot. I couldn't even guess what temperature but I couldn't bear to keep my palms on the palmrest for even a second or two.

I turned it off right away, figuring that would cool it off, but decided after about a minute that it'd be better to turn it on so at least the fans could run. I did this, and after about 90 seconds I could comfortably have it back in my lap and use it, thought it was still uncomfortable. By about two or three minutes in, I was comfortably keeping my palms on the palm rest, though it was still quite warm. That's a pretty amazing temperature reduction.

It's been three days and I haven't noticed any side effects of it yet. I wish I knew the exact temperature so I could let you all know, but I thought I'd post a testemant to what is really a remarkable piece of hardware. Hopefully I won't see any problems down the road because of this.

 

WOW. good job, Dell! Can't believe that you didn't roast anything inside.

 

You know, it would have shut down automatically if it overheated.

 

Wow. I did something similar to mine; it was running, in a vinyl case, next to a heater, and it cooled of in a matter of a couple minutes as well.

 

The thought that it did not go into the sleep/hibernate mode when the lid was close scares me

 

about a year ago I bought a display model from a sam's club. The guy got the box, all the stuffings, put it all together nicely for me.. It was inside a cloth slipcover, in a plastic bag, then inside the box itself. It had done the same thing, it DID NOT shut off, kept running on 'high performance' for the next 2 hours while I did some errands then went home.

This was an HP by the way. An AMD TL-56 I think it was. Yea it was hot. No issues though.

 

I always wait til the power light tells me it's in standby rather then assuming.

 

its heat damage to the screen i'd be worried about. I know almost all new pc's have auto shutoff for an overheating cpu. is the display surface ok?

 

I think it is better to leave it off to let it cool when this happens. When the laptop is on, then yes, the fans are cooling it, but the electronics is still producing heat. If it's off, the electronics are not producing heat and aren't in danger of overheating.