I have a new Toshiba L35 series laptop, and the manual doesn't say
anything about the limits of ambient temperature within which the
computer will operate ok. All it says is to avoid "extremes" of
temperture or humidity.

While it's not quite the time of year for this, I was hoping to be
able to sit on the back porch in summertime and compute from there
wirelessly and still be able to keep my eye on the kids in the pool.
But, this being Oklahoma, typical summer temperatures in the heat of
the day will be in the mid- to upper 90's, sometimes well into the
100's. So I wondered if that will work ok.

I know it may vary with the laptop and processor, but are there any
generally accepted rules about this? Or any personal experience?

Peabody wrote:
> I have a new Toshiba L35 series laptop, and the manual doesn't say
> anything about the limits of ambient temperature within which the
> computer will operate ok. All it says is to avoid "extremes" of
> temperture or humidity.
>
> While it's not quite the time of year for this, I was hoping to be
> able to sit on the back porch in summertime and compute from there
> wirelessly and still be able to keep my eye on the kids in the pool.
> But, this being Oklahoma, typical summer temperatures in the heat of
> the day will be in the mid- to upper 90's, sometimes well into the
> 100's. So I wondered if that will work ok.
>
> I know it may vary with the laptop and processor, but are there any
> generally accepted rules about this? Or any personal experience?
>
>
As a general rule of thumb for electronic stuff, the failure rate
doubles for every 10 degrees C in temperature rise.
But there's also a lot of non-electronic stuff in there.
For example, the electrodes are connected to your display with a kind of
glue. When that melts, all bets are off.
I've seen plastic warp in such a way that if you closed the display,
you'd crack it.

For a "good design" yeah, right...if you're sittin in the shade at 90F,
you shouldn't have serious problems. You're gonna have to shade it well
to see the display anyway. But if you leave it in direct sunlight while
you work, or go make lunch...it's gonna get a LOT hotter than that.

Stated another way, if you'd feel comfortable sitting naked in the
environment all day without sunscreen, your laptop shouldn't mind
either...except that it's gonna fail 2x as often as if you ran it inside.

Then there's also the other issues if you don't watch it every second:
Sudden rain storm, splash from pool, cat taking a leak in it, dogs/kids
knocking it off the deck, wife sitting on it...

If I'm doing something that has higher risk, I take a $1 laptop.
mike

"mike" <spamme9******.com> wrote in message
news:nRiih.1766$mT6.604@trnddc07
> As a general rule of thumb for electronic stuff, the failure rate
> doubles for every 10 degrees C in temperature rise.
> But there's also a lot of non-electronic stuff in there.
> For example, the electrodes are connected to your display with a kind
> of glue. When that melts, all bets are off.
> I've seen plastic warp in such a way that if you closed the display,
> you'd crack it.
>
> For a "good design" yeah, right...if you're sittin in the shade at
> 90F, you shouldn't have serious problems. You're gonna have to shade
> it well to see the display anyway. But if you leave it in direct
> sunlight while you work, or go make lunch...it's gonna get a LOT
> hotter than that.
> Stated another way, if you'd feel comfortable sitting naked in the
> environment all day without sunscreen, your laptop shouldn't mind
> either...except that it's gonna fail 2x as often as if you ran it
> inside.
> Then there's also the other issues if you don't watch it every second:
> Sudden rain storm, splash from pool, cat taking a leak in it,
> dogs/kids knocking it off the deck, wife sitting on it...
>
> If I'm doing something that has higher risk, I take a $1 laptop.
> mike

Well most electronics should handle 95 degrees F in the shade, including
laptops. I did search for the temperature specs and I couldn't find them
either. :(

Just a quick note, http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ is giving away
"ASTRA32 - Advanced System Information Tool" (only today till midnight
PST) for free which can read internal temperatures with some chipsets.

Also when I worked for Philips in the 80's, some chips we produced had
problems (which we fixed sort of) with heating and cooling cycles.
Meaning it was better to leave the heat on instead of heating and
cooling the chips over and over again.

Also I believe that heat is okay, till a point and then it goes into
thermal runaway. Most of the time if you shut it down right away, no
permanent damage should not take place. Although it can it you don't
turn it off. But don't quote me on this. It did work great for most
older chips.

Lastly, where do I find these one buck laptops? :)

--
Bill

Peabody wrote:
> I have a new Toshiba L35 series laptop, and the manual doesn't say
> anything about the limits of ambient temperature within which the
> computer will operate ok. All it says is to avoid "extremes" of
> temperture or humidity.
>
> While it's not quite the time of year for this, I was hoping to be
> able to sit on the back porch in summertime and compute from there
> wirelessly and still be able to keep my eye on the kids in the pool.
> But, this being Oklahoma, typical summer temperatures in the heat of
> the day will be in the mid- to upper 90's, sometimes well into the
> 100's. So I wondered if that will work ok.
>
> I know it may vary with the laptop and processor, but are there any
> generally accepted rules about this? Or any personal experience?
>
>
I believe that, aside from the dangers of handling a laptop outdoors,
the main problem you will likely have is ... see something on the
display, especially if it is one of those bright high reflection ones ...

If the fan keeps running at high speeds, chances are your machine will
be running than it should. Listen to it!

Regards

--
John Doue

Its strange...its part of the Toshiba manual in PDF form) and you will
see the recommended maximum temperature /humidity operating
conditions.
I happen to peruse the manual of my friends Qosmio 17 inch multimedia
laptop some months ago
IIRC its not higher than 40 deg C, most likely in the vicinity of 37
deg C. and maximum humidity not higher than 90 %.
Peabody wrote:
> I have a new Toshiba L35 series laptop, and the manual doesn't say
> anything about the limits of ambient temperature within which the
> computer will operate ok. All it says is to avoid "extremes" of
> temperture or humidity.
>
> While it's not quite the time of year for this, I was hoping to be
> able to sit on the back porch in summertime and compute from there
> wirelessly and still be able to keep my eye on the kids in the pool.
> But, this being Oklahoma, typical summer temperatures in the heat of
> the day will be in the mid- to upper 90's, sometimes well into the
> 100's. So I wondered if that will work ok.
>
> I know it may vary with the laptop and processor, but are there any
> generally accepted rules about this? Or any personal experience?

You shouldn't have a problem within reason, say up into the 90's, if the
computer is in the shade.

In 2002, I had to put on an outdoor demonstration of some
all-environment systems drive by a laptop (it was an IBM Thinkpad). It
was extremely hot (over 100), very humid and we were required to do this
in direct sunlight (in fact the whole purpose of the test was to
evaluate special "sunlight viewable" LCD displays for outdoor direct
sunlight viewability).

The black thinkpad got hot. It got really hot, so hot that you could
not touch or hold it, probably 130 or so on the outside of the case. I
threw a white towel over it, but I thought it would crash or lockup.
Well, while I don't recommend such operation, the Thinkpad worked fine
for the entire duration of the several hour demo.

I don't think that all or even most laptops could have handled that
(including, perhaps, other Thinkpad models). But you should be fine in
the 90's IN THE SHADE. Beyond that, things might get dicey, depending
on the specific computer involved.

[It depends on what you are doing, also. I have seen warnings in laptop
manuals that they might shut down even in moderate temperatures, and
I've seen them both "throttle" and shutdown completely (in the mid-upper
70's). It may have as much to do with what you are doing, and it most
definitely is model specific. But the worst cases were with laptops
that used desktop Pentium 4 processors, a practice that no longer occurs
and which I think is behind us.]


Peabody wrote:
> I have a new Toshiba L35 series laptop, and the manual doesn't say
> anything about the limits of ambient temperature within which the
> computer will operate ok. All it says is to avoid "extremes" of
> temperture or humidity.
>
> While it's not quite the time of year for this, I was hoping to be
> able to sit on the back porch in summertime and compute from there
> wirelessly and still be able to keep my eye on the kids in the pool.
> But, this being Oklahoma, typical summer temperatures in the heat of
> the day will be in the mid- to upper 90's, sometimes well into the
> 100's. So I wondered if that will work ok.
>
> I know it may vary with the laptop and processor, but are there any
> generally accepted rules about this? Or any personal experience?
>
>

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:4589d7bb$0$16704$4c368faf@roadrunner.com
> ... But the worst cases were with laptops that used desktop
> Pentium 4 processors, a practice that no longer occurs and
> which I think is behind us.

My Celeron M 1.5GHZ laptop is running 108 degrees F (measured from the
HD protective circuits) when the room is 72 degress. I like cool running
chips! <grin>

--
Bill

Peabody wrote:

> But, this being Oklahoma, typical summer temperatures in the heat of
> the day will be in the mid- to upper 90's, sometimes well into the
> 100's. So I wondered if that will work ok.

I've never had any problems using any of my Thinkpads when sitting by the
golf course behind my daughter's house in Jenks during the summer.

I was in shade though, not direct sunlight.
--
James

Visit the Thinkpad Forums
http://forum.thinkpads.com

BillW50 says...

>> If I'm doing something that has higher risk, I take a
>> $1 laptop.

> Lastly, where do I find these one buck laptops? :)

Yeah, I'd like to find one of those too.

Roy says...

> Its strange...its part of the Toshiba manual in PDF
> form) and you will see the recommended maximum
> temperature /humidity operating conditions.

Nope. I searched the pdf manual, and couldn't find
anything.

> I happen to peruse the manual of my friends Qosmio 17
> inch multimedia laptop some months ago IIRC its not
> higher than 40 deg C, most likely in the vicinity of 37
> deg C. and maximum humidity not higher than 90 %.

I guess 37 deg C would work ok. If it's much hotter than
that, I probably wouldn't want to be there anyway.

JHEM says...

>> But, this being Oklahoma, typical summer temperatures
>> in the heat of the day will be in the mid- to upper
>> 90's, sometimes well into the 100's. So I wondered if
>> that will work ok.

> I've never had any problems using any of my Thinkpads
> when sitting by the golf course behind my daughter's
> house in Jenks during the summer.

> I was in shade though, not direct sunlight.

Thanks for the very relevant report - I'm about four miles
from Jenks. :-)

I doubt my little Toshiba is quite as robust as your IBM's,
but that's still encouraging information. I would be on a
covered patio that faces East, so there wouldn't be any
possibility of direct sun after about 9:00 am.

Peabody wrote:
>
> Thanks for the very relevant report - I'm about four miles
> from Jenks. :-)

As I mentioned, my daughter's place is on the east side of the golf course
right off the end of 1R at KRVS, so the backyard faces west. Even with a
covered patio the lowering sun will quickly drive you inside in summer.

Your situation, facing east under a patio, is more conducive to long
stretches outdoors. I'd say enjoy them when possible and don't worry overly
much about your Toshiba, it should do just fine provided you don't leave it
in _direct_ summer sunlight for long periods of time.
--
James

Visit the Thinkpad Forums
http://forum.thinkpads.com

Peabody wrote:
> BillW50 says...
>
> >> If I'm doing something that has higher risk, I take a
> >> $1 laptop.
>
> > Lastly, where do I find these one buck laptops? :)
>
> Yeah, I'd like to find one of those too.
>
>
It depends on what you're trying to do.
I you're sitting on your deck doing finite element modeling,
you're obviously gonna need a $20 laptop.

For the usual stuff, email, writing my autobiography, posting lame
newsgroup articles,
downloading porn...a $1 laptop is sufficient.

As for where to get 'em, I'm not sure I can describe it.
They seem to follow me home. Never could resist a stray.
Got 16 laptops in the living room right now, but only about
half of them see any active use. Several waiting for free
hard drive caddies to turn up...and not much incentive to look
for 'em...'cause they'd still have zero resale value.

I am finding three classes of laptops.
1) expensive stuff
2) WAY overpriced crap
3) Free crap.

Sometimes you have to offer a bribe of $1 to get the free crap.
And there's usually something minor you have to fix.

Free crap is prefectly good for web surfing. And if it falls
in the pool, nobody cares.
mike

mike says...

>> Yeah, I'd like to find one of those too.

> It depends on what you're trying to do. I you're sitting
> on your deck doing finite element modeling, you're
> obviously gonna need a $20 laptop.

I gave up finite element modeling for Lent a few years back,
and decided to just let it go for good. So I won't need
that expensive model.

On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:39:17 -0500, Barry Watzman
<WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote:

> [...]
>
> [It depends on what you are doing, also. I have seen warnings in laptop
> manuals that they might shut down even in moderate temperatures, and
> I've seen them both "throttle" and shutdown completely (in the mid-upper
> 70's). It may have as much to do with what you are doing, and it most
> definitely is model specific. But the worst cases were with laptops
> that used desktop Pentium 4 processors, a practice that no longer occurs
> and which I think is behind us.]

In the German NG de.comp.sys.notebooks we had occasional reports of
T4x p Thinkpads to shut down during gaming (and Germany isn't exactly
known for it's hot & humid climate - the reports didn't refer to one
of the few unusually hot days in summer where temps might rise to
30-40°C [86-104°F] neither) - a thermal design-problem with the higher
performing GPUs of the p-Series in the T-chassis it seemed - these
things are not just a matter of theoretical warnings but do happen in
practice too (and not just with Thinkpads) - Laptops ARE difficult in
respect of thermal design...

BTW: the throttle- (Passive Cooling)/ shutdown-(Critical) temperatures
for my Pentium Mobile 1.6 GHz are about 91°C/ 94°C (195.8°F/ 201.2°F)

In addition to that: though the CPU usually is the one part most
monitor programs show and evaluate the temperature of, it's not the
only one that is relevant - especially the GPU can produce an enormous
amount of waste heat - Google Earth demonstrates that quite nicely on
a certain hardware when set to OpenGL Graphics mode, where the GPU
runs at nearly 100% load while the CPU load is relatively minor...
On Thinkpads the little tool TPfancontrol shows you the readings of
temperature sensors other than just the CPU, which is an interesting
reading in case of my R50 (Pentium Mobile CPU), 'cause now I know why
my fan is still running even though in idle mode my CPU temp goes way
down below 40°C (104°F) while the GPU still remains at about 50+°C
(122°F) for a long time...

BTW: a good BIOS of course takes these other readings into
consideration too for controlling the fan...


Additional Info: Tools like "Notebook Hardware Control" by Manfred
Jaider amongst other things let you configure the CPU Voltage for
every speed-step - that way you can not just decrease the
power-consumption of the CPU (noticeable only to a little extent) but
the heat emission too (with my settings up to an average of more than
5°C [9°F]) which has the additional effect of increasing the life-time
of your CPU to a degree...

T.C.