An uneven surface like a rug can partially block the air vents on the side and beneath your laptop. For example, putting it on a hard surface like a desk or floor is good, but putting it on a rug or on the duvet of your bed is bad. The first and most important thing is to always place your laptop on a surface that allows for good air circulation.
So, what can you do to prevent your laptop from running so hot your cat is afraid of sitting on it? Here are a few tips I’ve gleaned over the years from talking with my colleagues.
And you can’t actually see any of that unless you take your laptop apart. But it’s not actually the screen size that causes most of the heat problems, it’s how the cooling system and airflow is designed inside the machine. For example, I used to avoid 17 inch or larger laptops, thinking that they would likely generate more heat than ones with smaller screens. But simply looking at a machine won’t give you clear indication of whether it’s going to run hot or not. Laptops with modern processors, however, are less likely to generate excessive heat. Gaming laptops are especially prone to overheating because of the heavy loads they constantly run under. Anything more than 5 years old that’s intended for business users probably falls in this category and can double in a pinch as a hand warmer in cold weather. Older more powerful laptops designed as “desktop replacements” generally tend to get quite warm after you use them for a while. I mean laptops can get pretty hot - some of them, anyway. Then there’s that warm feeling I feel down under when it’s been running awhile on my lap. The word laptop is a misnomer, isn’t it? I mean who really sits their laptop on their lap when they’re working on something? Maybe that college student sitting on the floor in the hallway, but certainly no one working at your company does that, right? One reason I never put my laptop on my lap is because it jiggles around too much when I try to type something.