Sometimes temperatures can soar quickly in a car on a hot day. If you leave your laptop or smartphone behind during lunch or a workout and the heat can fry it faster than you might imagine. The heat can damage your device, sometimes badly enough to lose your data, and it can even start a fire or cause an explosion.
During summer, most people ask if you can leave a laptop in a hot car. the no. 1 rule is don’t leave your electronics in a hot car. all electronics have safe operating temperature ranges.
You want your laptop to be cool to the touch before locking it up in the car. This can take up to five minutes. If you don’t have that type of time, try shutting down your laptop before arriving at your location.
What Is The Best Temperature For Laptop? How Hot Is Too Hot For A Laptop?
Laptops have been designed to work within a safe temperature range, typically between 50 to 95 degrees F (10 – 35 degrees C). Beyond this, you should shut down your PC and let it completely cool down. Consistent high temperatures can lead to permanent damage to your device
Any Mac that is sitting in a locked car in direct sunlight with no ventilation in mid-summer can easily get up to 130 to 172 degrees Fahrenheit! It’s a very good practice to never let your computer sit in a hot car in the summer.
Is It Bad To Keep Laptop In Hot Car?
At high temperatures, the inner components of your laptop, such as the hard drive and the motherboard, may get affected, resulting in long-term defects. Furthermore, high heat levels are also harmful to your laptop’s battery and there may even be a risk of explosion.
How Heat Affects The Laptop
Excessive heat lowers the electrical resistance of objects, therefore increasing the current. In addition, the slowdown is a result of overheating. Components can shut down when overheated and the motherboard temperature sensor instructs hardware such as the hard drive and processor to slow down
Conditions Where You Can Leave Your Laptop In The Car
- Make sure the computer is turned off before leaving your laptop in the car to avoid the battery getting heated up and thus explosion!
- Put the laptop in a cooler bag- Coole
- Make sure its cool before restarting
- Store the laptop in the trunk
- park the car under the sunshade
- Remove the battery-Laptops, phones, and tablets contain lithium batteries that get very hot and can build up the heat — potentially causing a fire.
Warning Signs That Your Smartphone Or Laptop Battery Could Explode
- A chemical smell comes emitted from the device.-Like a metal or plastic burnt smell!
- The gadget gets really hot while running several programs
- The device doesn’t charge properly or loses charge faster so you have to keep the power cable on all the time.
- The device is swelling especially where the battery is located, or the seams are bursting open.
- You see Smoke popping up
- Liquids leaking from a device
- The device has suffered serious damage, especially on the covers.
- When you place the laptop on your lap, you feel a burning sensation
How To Cool Down Your Laptop
An overheated battery will lose its charge quickly and can even explode if nothing is done to correct the problem, creating the potential for not only damaging the computer but also inflicting personal injury.
Considering the possible consequences, try fixing an overheating laptop battery by using the checklist below.
- Place your MacBook on a flat, level surface such as a table or desk instead of your bed or blanket. This should increase airflow and cool the computer down.
- Use an external fan if possible-If you put the fan so it is assisting the laptop fan, it will cool better. Also, ensuring the laptop fan and heatsink are free from dust will help with cooling as well.
- If you are out in the sun, take the computer inside or at least into a shady area out of direct sunlight.
- Restart the laptop when you feel it’s cool
- Understand your laptop’s typical performance and settings, especially battery-saving mode. Use diagnostic software to make sure your fans are running properly.
- Avoid metal, hot plastic, or concrete padded surfaces.
- Elevate your laptop at a comfortable angle.
- Keep your laptop and workspace clean.
- Work in an air-conditioned environment usually takes 30 mins for a heated laptop to cool down. The time is when it’s comfortable to hold your laptop from the base. Well, try to take away dirt from your fan and then try to start it again.
Summary-Can You Leave A Laptop In A Hot Car?
If you want to avoid extreme temperatures as much as possible, Most of the laptop components will be fine if left for a short time. However, Hard Drives and Solid State Drives (SSDs) will not like hot temperatures. So no, we wouldn’t recommend leaving it in your car.