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Recently I decided to use my laptop with an external monitor and I always use it closed-lid and enjoy. :)

The question is: Is it wrong to use a laptop closed-lid?

I mean problems like overheating or anything else? Also, I use it without the battery. Can it cause any damage or problems?

RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket
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Howsen
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    Both answers are good enough for me to add not a third answer, but I wanted to add that in most cases, heat will not be transferred through the part where the keyboard is. Yes, it may become warm, but its not because that is how it dissopates heat. There are a handful of gaming laptops that have special air outtakes at the top front of the laptops, and obviously those laptops would be affected, but in general, this is normal practice. So unless your laptop has air vents at the top with fans behind it, you are fine. – LPChip Mar 25 '20 at 21:11
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    Using it with our without the battery is a tough choice. Without the battery, you don't have any protection against a power failure or brownout (unless you have a UPS). With the battery, the battery will wear down over time and won't last as long in a couple years. Confirmed by personal experience. With the battery, power use and heat might also be a little greater than without. – RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket Mar 26 '20 at 09:30
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    Consider putting something under it to increase airflow just in case. Could be something as small as a pen, just to lift it a few centimeters. – Viktor Mellgren Mar 26 '20 at 09:44
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    Welcome to the site! In general you should post different questions as separate questions. You could break out the part about using it without a battery to a different one. :) – Captain Man Mar 26 '20 at 14:06
  • My office PC have the venting grid above the keyboard so I keep the lid open because it's the only place where heat can escape (also with lid closed it heats up quite a lot), my personal PC has a venting grid on the side that cools well closed as it does open. – DDS Mar 27 '20 at 14:53
  • I have a small, inexpensive laptop running weather station software. It's been running continuously without being opened a single time for about 3 years now. – Carey Gregory Mar 28 '20 at 22:02
  • Anecdotal: I have a laptop with a bloated battery. So I have left it in the office, closed, docked (charged over the dock), and use it like a desktop all the time. – Darius Apr 01 '20 at 10:20

12 Answers12

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If your hardware manufacturer offers a dock peripheral for your laptop, you can rest assured it's considered normal use for your device. If you're still concerned about overheating, I would recommend using an open source temperature monitoring utility to put your mind at ease.

gnubeard
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    Keep in mind that there are USB docks out there too. You have a usb device that you connect to the laptop, and from that usb device, you plug in all your other usb devices, monitor etc... Laptop manufacturers know this too, so unless it is a high-end special gaming laptop that obviously has its fans and air vents at the front top of the laptop (looking at you acer) you're this should be fine. – LPChip Mar 25 '20 at 21:14
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    I'm not sure what docks of either kind prove - it is particularly common with the USB kind to use the laptop open, while it is docked - this is how they are usually set up in publicity photos. – MikeB Mar 27 '20 at 10:34
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    Your answer is perfectly fine from a yes/no perspective or in terms of specs. However, one could add that the world is not binary. Laptop design is always a trade-off between weight, size, noise, performance and other factors. And of course, as manufacturers want to max out what is technically possible, their devices tend to operate at the limit. So, they might e.g. throttle their CPU less often under optimal cooling conditions. On this level, opening or closing the lid can in fact result in gradual changes. – philipp Mar 27 '20 at 14:48
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It really depends on the hardware. Some laptops are designed in such a way that cooling is in some way dependent on the lid being open. Some of the super thin gaming laptops with NVIDIA GPU's are like this, the bottom is cantilevered so that it opens up when you open the lid, exposing or enlarging the exhaust vents to allow for proper cooling. Some other designs integrate the exhaust vents into the hinge in such a way that there can be little to no airflow if the lid is closed (usually such designs have the hot air flowing up in front of the screen).

Other than cases like those though, you should be perfectly fine running your laptop with the lid closed all the time.

There is, however, one other caveat to this: don't put anything particularly heavy on top of your laptop when doing this. Most should be fine, but some have poorly designed lids and may end up with damaged screens from doing that (I had this issue with a couple of ThinkPad L series laptops a few years ago).

Austin Hemmelgarn
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If the cooling subsystem of the laptop is functioning as designed, there's no problem. I've seen many folks in many places running with the hood down, and a similar number running without the battery.

Why did I say "functioning as designed"? Well, if the fan fails, the firmware settings altered to slow it down or turn it off, or if vents are clogged by dust, dirt, or hair, that could cause a problem. Solution: Keep it clean and don't override the defaults for cooling.

K7AAY
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One thing I'd note is that you shouldn't use the laptop closed if the fan is in the hinge area.

I used to use my laptop just like that, closed with an external monitor, but it started to run really slow. I wasn't totally sure why until I noticed that the CPU temperature was extremely high (like 95 degrees Celsius). It was so hot that the casing started to warp.

After I opened it, everything started to run much faster. When it was closed, the hinge blocked most of the airflow, and so the CPU was constantly throttling to try to limit the heat. So, lesson learned, know where your fan is before you use your laptop closed.

sus
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  • On my Thinkpad E495 the fan exhaust is in the hinge area but the hinge is designed in a way to not block the exhaust when the laptop is closed. – Michael Mar 28 '20 at 08:29
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Using it closed is perfectly fine. Using it without the battery is not good for the laptop or the battery.

It's not good for the laptop because the laptop uses the battery to supply power during demand spikes. The charger is connected through a long, skinny cable with lots of inductance and can't respond as well to demand spikes without voltage sag.

It's not good for the battery because while the battery is disconnected from the laptop, it self-discharges. You will eventually have to place this charge back into the battery, needlessly wasting its cycle life. By leaving the battery in the laptop, the charger can prevent the battery from self-discharging, preserving its cycle life. This is an extremely minor effect and might be outweighed by the battery being slightly warmer due to being in the laptop.

Personally, I would still avoid it unless there was a good reason to remove the battery. Most laptop battery contacts aren't made to handle many cycles and poor connections would cause a huge problem.

David Schwartz
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  • Li-ion batteries wear out faster just sitting at full charge, especially at higher temperature. Some laptops have a BIOS option to only charge the battery up to 50% while on long-term AC power. Being stored in a cool place (not below freezing) is apparently ideal for a Li-ion, but not so long that self-discharge 100% drains the cells. (I know electrical full discharge makes a cell unusable, like will catch fire if recharged; IDK if self-discharge will do that or how many years it would take starting from say 80%) – Peter Cordes Mar 26 '20 at 08:27
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    I somewhat disagree with this answer. Running a laptop without battery can be good for the battery provided the battery does not discharge to low. Self discharge of lithium batteries is small, and can take years to go from 70-40%. Unless the laptop is specifically set up to keep the battery at (say) 65% when plugged in - which is not a common default, keeping the battery at 100% charge will damage it significantly faster then slow self discharge - provided that discharge does not go to low. – davidgo Mar 26 '20 at 08:30
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    Re: current spikes: The voltages that actually matter are the output side of DC->DC converters inside the laptop that go from +20V or whatever to +1.2V for the CPU/RAM; they can probably handle significant sag of their input side. And they already have significant capacitance to decouple them from the cord / battery. The battery might help a tiny bit, but I expect most laptops stay well within specs when they need to draw more current from the cord. The battery would help if you jiggle the cord and accidentally disconnect power for a moment, though! – Peter Cordes Mar 26 '20 at 08:32
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    All that said, though: the battery is a free UPS, so unless you're plugging in to an actual UPS or the power never ever fails, I'd probably leave it in. – Peter Cordes Mar 26 '20 at 08:34
  • @PeterCordes Unless he almost never needs to use his laptop on battery, that effect is going to be negligible compared to the cycle life issue. The battery management system is smart enough to avoid putting the battery in conditions that will harm its life. When the charger says "100%", the battery is at the level the designers of the battery management thought optimal for that situation. They know what they're doing. – David Schwartz Mar 26 '20 at 14:50
  • @PeterCordes Unfortunately, you're wrong about current spikes. Most laptops are designed to use the battery as the cushion. What you expect is, unfortunately, not the reality, particularly for higher-end gaming laptops. – David Schwartz Mar 26 '20 at 14:52
  • @DavidSchwartz: ok, I'll take your word for it on current spikes on some laptops. That was more of a guess on my part. But re: battery life: https://www.howtogeek.com/169669/debunking-battery-life-myths-for-mobile-phones-tablets-and-laptops/ says that leaving your laptop plugged in long term with the battery connected is the worst thing you can do for it, especially if it gets hot. (Except for fully discharging). And it's recommended to store batteries long term (starting) at 50% charge. – Peter Cordes Mar 26 '20 at 15:04
  • Do you have any source for your claim that the very slow self-discharge of Li-Ion batteries is worse than sitting in a warm laptop at 100% charge indefinitely? As @ davidgo says, it takes *years* for much self-discharge to happen. – Peter Cordes Mar 26 '20 at 15:04
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    Practical experience: I've been using the same ThinkPad laptop in a dock for over a dozen years. (Though I use it with the lid open, as a second display.) In that time, the battery capacity has degraded from a nominal 84240 mWh to 57350 mWh, or slightly more than 2/3 of its original capacity. – jamesqf Mar 26 '20 at 17:51
  • @PeterCordes The article you linked is so obviously wrong that it's hard to figure out what part you seriously want refuted. For example, "the worst situation is keeping a fully charged battery at elevated temperatures". Really? Worse than depleting its cycle life? And, "Allow your laptop’s battery to occasionally discharge somewhat before charging it back up — that will keep the electrons flowing and keep the battery from losing capacity" -- that's not about lithium batteries and has no relevance to them. Laptop batteries die because they run out of cycle life. – David Schwartz Mar 26 '20 at 18:19
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    @DavidSchwartz: Where are you getting your information about batteries that leads you to believe keeping a Li-ion battery at 100% charge is *not* harmful? https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries has actual graphs from actual tests on real batteries. *High voltages and exposure to elevated temperature is said to degrade the battery quicker than cycling under normal condition.* That might be talking about charging to higher voltages than a laptop might aim for, because that's a known fact and they can choose what voltage "100%" actually is. – Peter Cordes Mar 26 '20 at 18:24
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    If you have such strong pre-conceived notions of what is "obvious", that sounds like a problem. Cycling is not the only thing that degrades useful capacity, and it matters what kind of cycling. – Peter Cordes Mar 26 '20 at 18:26
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    As an electronics engineer, I'd suggest that "_voltage sag_" is a non-issue (as already mentioned, the supply's ~20v will be dropped to between 5 to ~1.05v for the core components... virtually nothing in the laptop will run at the full voltage). Letting a battery rest (or using built-in charge limit) is going to be much better than keeping it topped up. Charge / discharge cycles are just that... load and temperature have significant impact - a partial self discharge (i.e: low current) is better than a high-current discharge. – Attie Mar 26 '20 at 18:54
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    Some laptops support running from a range of supplies (e.g: some Dell machines, can run from supplies ranging 45W to 120W+), and they limit their power usage accordingly if the incorrect (or lower wattage than optimal) adapter is in use (i.e: no charging / running off battery while powered, underclocking, or full performance). There are of course exceptions to this, like ridiculous workstation / gaming laptops that require two power supplies... but they are in the opposite situation - not enough power can be delivered from battery. – Attie Mar 26 '20 at 18:57
  • Keeping an li-ion batter at full charge is mostly a problem when the battery is being stored unused for long periods of time. When it's actively used it's much less significant. – barbecue Mar 26 '20 at 18:58
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    High temperatures are bad for pretty much all batteries, including li-ion. Long term storage at full charge is bad for them too. However this does not mean that they should never be fully charged. They should not be STORED fully charged for long periods, and they should not be exposed to high temperatures in general. There's no reason not to fully charge a battery that will be actively used. – barbecue Mar 26 '20 at 19:02
  • @barbecue - important to note that by "_actively used_", you mean discharged (not necessarily fully)... this can be achieved either by running from battery for a period (not wall power), or using uncommon battery conditioning features (such as discharging to ~60-70% and keeping the battery at that point instead of 100%). – Attie Mar 26 '20 at 19:06
  • @Attie I'm assuming a modern laptop from a major manufacturer such as Dell or Lenovo. The batteries and chargers are designed to handle this automatically, so there's no reason for the user to do anything special. Obviously, some cheaper brands will cut corners, but I've not seen a recent laptop without this feature in years. – barbecue Mar 26 '20 at 19:19
  • David and @barbecue: semi-related: [Ideal charging / discharging percentage for maximum battery life?](https://android.stackexchange.com/q/156526) on Android.SE. Laptops and phones use similar battery tech, but maybe with different design choices and tuning for their chargers. But batteryuniversity data that I cited earlier does seem to be widely regarded as correct, with non-full charging leading to factors of 2 or more total discharge cycles, and more total `energy / cycle * cycles = total energy delivered` for using less energy per cycle. – Peter Cordes Apr 10 '20 at 19:03
  • @PeterCordes That information is extremely deceptive because the effect is an order of magnitude less than the effect of a deep discharge. And in practice, you have to choose one or the other. If you're going to draw 50% of the charge out of your laptop or phone in a day, if you start at 100%, you finish at 50%. If you start at 80%, you finish at 30%. The harm of the deeper discharge is *much* greater than any tiny benefit from the lower initial charge. – David Schwartz Apr 12 '20 at 02:49
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It is ok as others have detailed.

If you want additional cooling - it can actually help speed up the processor if it gets hot - and to extend the life of components beyond their original designed date (date accounting for effects of high temperature. You can use a cooling pad. One example is shown hear. Not the same as my model (gearhead) but the various models are similar - basically large fans under your laptop.

enter image description here

Long term, it may depend on usage. For instance if you keep the computer on and the temp is stable then components won't be affected in the same way that a computer (e.g. laptop), often on and off and sometimes lid closed will be more of a strain on the components as materials in them expand and contract. That said, laptops are built to handle this normally for the expected lifetime of the laptop.

Michael Durrant
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I would use the laptop with the lid closed and without the battery!

I think it´s a good idea to store the battery not fully charged. Perhaps, every 2 months or so you can do a complete cycle. I mean, fully charge the battery, then use the laptop with battery until it is in 5% of power (or so) and then charge it until 65% and store it.

I have never heard that power demand spikes take energy from battery. However, as almost everything in computing world, it can be measured. Download some benchmark software and run it with different stress benchamrks with and without the battery so you can test if specifically your laptop will take power from the battery. Then, you can post the results here if you want!

One more thing: in my experience using a laptop with the lid closed significantly reduced the Wi-Fi signal. That is because the Wi-Fi antenna used to be in the frame of the monitor. In that case you can use it connected to an external monitor and the with the key combination Windows key + P you can select to have image only in the external monitor.

Ignacio
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    full cycle was good for NiCd (and to a lesser degree NiMH) batteries, but it's very bad for Li-ion batteries – Ben Voigt Mar 26 '20 at 18:45
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    Li Ion batteries should be kept partially charged when they are going to be stored unused for a long time. If you use them frequently, it's not an issue. – barbecue Mar 26 '20 at 19:03
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    So, I will try this. Seems cool. – Howsen Mar 26 '20 at 20:01
  • "Without a battery": Even a battery that is totally shot is still good as a 5 second UPS, which saves you for very short term power loss, or for excessive power use spinning up a hard drive etc. MacBooks set their clock rate down to 1 GHz when running without a battery, to guarantee no crashes. – gnasher729 Mar 28 '20 at 14:52
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Every MacBook is designed to run with the lid closed. Just attach a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Some people go on eBay and find a very cheap MacBook with broken screen, which makes a very fine desktop computer.

gnasher729
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Surprised nobody mentioned that if you have it closed you may as well put it upside down too (assuming your primary vents are underneath). The heat will rise more easily. Even better - if you have a 3 in one device connect it to an external keyboard and use it in 'tent mode' and the vents will be facing upwards.

This goes for leaving a laptop on a bed or couch if you're not using it - put it upside down so it doesn't overheat.

Disclaimer: Before anyone says it I doubt that a laptop fan is going to malfunction upside down - but that's always your own choice. If it makes a horrible noise that's your clue that something is wrong whatever the orientation.

Simon
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It depends.

A fanless laptop (rare these days) or a laptop pretending to be silent and thin is pretty much dependant on lid being open in order to cool itself efficiently. Depending on workload, it may not matter at all, make laptop a bit hotter and/or slower, wear down the fan or CPU faster or suck more dust into the radiator. A "workstation-like" (tick, powerful, 15" and more) is pretty much immune to these risks.

(I ran an eeepc for ~7 years nonstop with the lid closed and nothing bad happened, but the fan almost never started.)

As for the battery: OK to run without battery if the laptop runs at all without battery. Some don't and some run in degraded mode with a nasty startup message. The battery itself is better off not being used, to an extent - it may self-discharge to death in a year or two. The battery ages even when not used and it doesn't age much slower when not used. Then again, how much confident are you about your utility power and how much work you can afford to lose?

fraxinus
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Generally,as per software and in windows When we close laptop Lid then it takes you into suspend or sleep mode or power management saving mode and as per hardware there is not any hardware except sensor at the place of lock of lid or at a button on body . Only the hardware wise keyboard and screen gets touched. Nothing gets bad or dangerous for closing the lid.

The major benefit of closing lid is the screen get rest in place of keeping closed its better then keep it open and hanging and as power saving mode helps to keep the display or HDD or devices get rest.

But as you use the laptop, through monitor the major thing is that the power management stops power keeps HDD or SDD in sleep mode power of and it sense that your laptop is not being used and still its being used by external display your monitor LED secondly other external devices like USB or wifi or bluetooth also gets less power voltage or current or go to sleep mode due to Power management settings in BIOS or windows.

FIRSTLY over heating in laptops is due functionality of Power Chips or Power Recharging unit or power circuit for charging its general problem with mobiles and Laptop when we work on laptop with charging mode it battery and the Power chip of charging unit to gets heated as its giving more voltage current and power to battery to charge as at the same time battery is charging and being used by devices so its always a good practice to use Electronic devices like laptops tabs on direct power of inverter or UPS when its available and batteries should be used when you using it remotely or Electricity is not available for backup purpose.

SECONDLY over heating in laptop is due to CPU RAM HDD SSD and various other electronic components capacitors ICs transistors chips discharge heat for which heat sink and fans are there (only on Processor North South Bridge of motherboard have heatsink or cooling systems or in some models on RAM , but other electronic components dont have this heat sinks) in high end laptop or gaming laptop there are High end cooling system or vents or big more power cooling fans are provided and they are tested benchmark for cooling. But in economic models the heating they assume that these laptops will be used less for household or official use and so not much cooling fans vents or systems are provided.

As per my knowledge experience and my point of view advice suggestion

  1. Remove batteries and use laptop in direct power of adapter current as your battery life will be more and battery will be used less and you can close the lid after removing battery and u should put the adapter plug on Inverter or UPS for using backup protecting laptop form electric surges and over voltage

  2. You should alter change settings of power management and change the settings of power on closure of lid that is no power to HDD SSD or devices and increase the limit of hours for HDD and devices see links given below

https://www.howtogeek.com/412876/how-to-keep-your-laptop-on-with-the-lid-closed-on-windows-10/

https://www.itechtics.com/run-laptop-with-lid-closed/

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/25230/beginner-geek-change-what-windows-does-when-you-shut-your-laptops-lid/

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/keep-windows-laptop-awake-lid-closed/

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-power/how-to-keep-laptop-on-after-closing-lidwindows-10/74b70fcc-8053-4634-94a1-163d892f5eba

https://www.dummies.com/computers/operating-systems/windows-7/changing-what-happens-when-you-close-the-lid-on-a-windows-7-laptop/

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/how-to-laptop-lid-shut-functions

  1. As case of overheating you can use ( as you have not mentioned your laptop company and model if you provide i can find softwares and cooling system that suits your laptop)

    a. software to monitor temperature of CPU graphic card GPU or RAM and create a table to compare and note down date wise temperature and see whats the difference when lid is opened and closed or using laptop screen or external monitor or led. I prefer software download from the laptop Manufactured company website find if they are providing or u can use 3rd party software's as suggested by other users . Watch which part is overheating more on closing lid for 2 -3 days regularly and do let me know we may troubleshoot it.

    b. increase Internal Laptops FAN and CPU FAN or GPU FAN Fan Speed through software prefer software download from the Laptop Manufactured company website find if they are providing or motherboard or GPU graphic card manufacturing company

    c. Search External laptop cooler FANs or laptop water cooling systems if any available for your model.

Hope above suggestions and advice help you do try to tell me your laptop company and model may be we can suggest or provide you with better troubleshooting or advice. If any of the suggestion advice helped or worked do tell me in comment for my knowledge and if not worked then feel free to ask further for doubts clarification in comments. if worked then dont forget to vote for answer or accepting the answer.

Androidquery
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From anecdotal experience, many laptops vent through the keyboard. Not only is it in some manufacturers' specs, you can often times actually feel the air escaping between your fingers when typing, especially under heavier loads.

This is speculation, but I think keeping the lid closed during use introduced a permanent dead pixel on my laptop's screen.

I try to keep laptops open now, even when using an external monitor.

gargoylebident
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