Safe to run laptop with lid closed?

I was wondering because when I watch a movie, sometimes I just want to be able to close the lid, but Ive always been worried that the heat (since some does dispense through the keyboard) will be bad for the LCD.

 

Yes it can be bad and its better to NOT do that for a long length of time.

 

Depends how much heat goes thru your keyboard. LCD screens do heat up anyway near the light source (usually the bottom of the screen). If you keyboard heats up moderately, I don't think you should worry about it.

For me, the keyboard is always cool. Somtimes I close the LCD to save on power, when I am waiting for something to finish executing/running. Perfectly safe.

 

Thats what I thought. I have a friend who runs his laptop closed all the time , cant be good for the screen.

 

I agree with qwester. I let my laptop run at night and to conserve power I close the lid. Never have there been any overheating issues apart from those that e1705 *may* be suffering from its hi-end GPU. Safe indeed.

 

Ideally, I think you would want to bring the screen down enough for the lcd to switch off, while leaving a reasonable amount of space between the screen and keyboard. That wat you save power, while allowing for enough space for the heat from below the keyboard to not dissipate to the lcd. Also, preventing excessive dust from settling on/in the keyboard area.
Hope thats useful to somebody. Dont know how bad the heat could be for the lcd, but why take a chance.

 

unless you are running something that uses lots of processor power, your laptop shouldn't be generating much heat when the lid is closed. GPU, for example, should be doing nothing if the screen is not on.

 

Sometimes I have my laptop closed when I hook it up to an external monitor. I never had any problems, even when running games. However, the temperatures are a few degrees higher because by closing the lid, the computer can't get rid of heat through the keyboard . . that really is specific to your laptop, so see how much heat is raidated off your keyboard.

 

Why would the GPU be doing nothing? It's still running. The screen turns off, not the GPU. Granted, it's unlikely you're running an app that displays any serious graphics while the screen's closed...but perhaps. You could be outputting to an external screen or some such, and the GPU would still be running. Or you could be running a 3D graphics plug in for your MP3 player and if you leave it going while the screen's off, the GPU's still calculating away, even if it's not getting displayed.

 

I close my screen while my laptop is on. It hasn't hurt the screen yet.

BTW if you want to turn off your screen just put something ontop of the little button that turns the screen on and off.
Tim

 

IF, it was external.

Mine is built into the hinge. My old sony had it built into the latch/lock mechanism.

 

with the thinkpad you just hit Fn+F3. do other laptops not offer the ability to shut off the screen easily?