[Debian-eeepc-devel] Running Eee with lid closed considered harmful?

[John]

On 22/04/2009, Alan Jenkins <sourcejedi.lkml at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 4/21/09, Ben Armstrong <synrg at sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca> wrote:
>> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:28:55 +0200
>> Santi Béjar <santi at agolina.net> wrote:
>>> It has been discussed in the past. The main issue is that the Eee uses
>>> the keyboard to cool the machine, so the only sane/safe thing to do is
>>> to suspend.
>>>
>>> You can always, at your own risk, modify the action in
>>> /etc/acpi/actions/lid.sh.
>>
>> I think the risks may be somewhat overstated, so we need to be clearer
>> on this point.  Please supply evidence that this is harmful.  My
>> experience with the model 4G is that it is safe to leave the lid closed
>> along as you apply some common sense.
>>
>> My Eee is now nearly a year and a half old.  In that time, I have more
>> than once accidentally left the lid closed with the system running
>> *and* left it in that state in my not-well-ventilated bag.  Upon
>> discovering this hours later, the temperature was reported to be around
>> 68C.  There is no evidence that the system sustained any damage from
>> these events.  Granted, this is only one data point, so you can't draw
>> any general conclusions from it.  However, it suggests that if you
>> exercise some prudence (i.e. don't leave it running with the lid
>> closed and run something CPU-intensive and/or block the vent) there
>> should be no problem running it with the lid closed, even for extended
>> periods of time.
>>
>
> +1.  I've done the same thing, and the machine was uncomfortably hot
> to the touch, but undamaged.  I agree that it gets hot if you just
> close it and walk away, but that's something you have to learn.  I
> learnt this quickly because it's _uncomfortable_ when it gets hot,
> even just typing on a desk.  If you have to deliberately choose to
> disable "suspend on lid close", I don't see the problem.  It's really
> not a "let me kill my hardware" setting.  It's "don't kill my user
> experience because I might sometimes forget and slightly reduce the
> lifetime of my hardware".
>
> I can see arguments for preserving the default.  If someone installs
> debian to replace Xandros, it's nice to have the same default
> behaviour, especially when there are trade-offs like this.
>
> But I'm unhappy with suspending it automatically because of the way I
> use it.  I drag it around with me at home, and I obviously close the
> lid while carrying it.  Having to press the power button, wait a few
> seconds for resume, and possibly recover broken network connections
> detracts significantly from the experience.  Am I that unusual?
>
>
> At least for the original EEE, the power consumption in suspend is
> unfortunately high.  My solution is to hibernate if I'm going to throw
> it in a bag, so I'm free to forget about it for the day.
>
> _______________________________________________


In my environment I can close my running 701 and prop it up like a
book. The air circulates between the screen and keyboard so well that
it never gets really hot even when working quite hard as a server and
running several applications over ssh-x. Ambient here is about 25C.
Another odd effect is that the signal for the wifi is better with it
stood up like that, but that is incidental.

John



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