Using a laptop while the lid is closed?

I've always been rather wary of this, especially on consumer-grade laptops, but I'm wondering how common this practice is as I often see people plug in their laptops into an external monitor and then close the lid...

 

Peon, bad idea. It is much better to open the lid and turn off notebook display if it's not needed.

 

Why is it a bad idea? I do it all the time when I plug my laptop into an external monitor or TV.

 

It's not a bad idea per say, it depends on the design and cooling capacity of your laptop. Some laptops may experience high temperatures on the display if the lid is closed, but by no means should closing the lid on a laptop connected to an external monitor be a bad thing. If there are issues from closing the lid, the laptop is victim of something called bad design. One of the main point of docking stations for business laptops is to have the ability to connect the laptop to multiple peripherals, including multiple displays and have the laptop out of the way.

If the laptop is overheating from having the display closed, the thermal design is just bad, if the laptop can't get air through the heatsink as efficiently when the display is closed due to where the air intake is locates, it's again bad design. The same goes for a laptop that would heat its display to damaging temperatures when the lid is closed. Badly designed laptops are out there though, so if you have one that is suffering from a design issue like those I mentioned, then, yes it's a bad idea to close the lid. However,t hat shouldn't be the case in the first place.

 

A lot of gaming laptops draw air in through the keyboard area as well as underneath, so it can be problematic, but most business class laptops don't have this problem.

 

Huh, I guess my laptop isn't one of them because I have a metal baseplate underneath the keyboard. There's no way it'd be able to draw air through there as it's almost completely blocked.

 

I do this all the time. I close the lid any time I am not using my laptop, but it is sitting there at 100% load anyway.

 

I don't see why it would matter. Most laptop cooling systems in intake air from a side/rear vent or on the bottom and exhaust it out the side/rear. Almost all business laptops that are docked here at work are closed (Dell Latitudes).

 

I think it's fine as long as you use the screen every few days for a while..

 

This. Air is generally drawn in through the bottom and vented out the back. As a result, it's more important that the notebook is on a firm surface like a table or desk, and not on your couch/bed/blanket where the intakes would be blocked.

My precision is docked and closed when I'm at my desk, and I use the built-in panel when working away from my desk. At home I use an external monitor in addition to the built in panel.

 

Business grade laptops are designed this way, but most consumer/gaming grade laptops are not. In most cases you will see a significant increase in temperatures with lid closed at load.

 

Not a problem for any of the cheapo consumer laptop in my home ~~~