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How Does Heat Effect Electronics?
I have always heard stories of heat damage to electronics. The day Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was released I waited in line for 13 hours in the scorching heat of the sun. I had left my NetBook in the hot car for the majority of the day, but around 2 PM I decided to pull it out of the car and stick it under an umbrella to try to get the heat off of it. Well, when it came time to use my NetBook to watch the Harry Potter films in line, it began to have issues playing the movies.
After a few hours when the sun went down the movies finally began playing correctly. I also had a Playstation Portable sitting in the same bag as the NetBook. About 4 PM that day I attempted to play a game on the PSP, however the screen looked insanely damaged. The screen had appeared as if it was melting away from the intense heat. After a while the screen seemed to be fine, but it still did cause some concern.
This was my first real personal experience with heat damaging my electronics. If our computers did not have fans to vent the heat, what would happen to them? Are heat issues an overlooked area in regards to electronics?
When I worked at Game Stop we would get a variety of issues people had. When the Microsoft Xbox 360 was first released we had tons of people bring games back with rings etched into the DVDs. This was obviously because they were running the Xbox 360 standing up which has been known to cause those issues.
One thing that was an issue and a cause for concern was how people handled their game systems. Often, when those individuals came to us with issues with their machines they tell us they stick their Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 into an enclosed area. Allow me to demonstrate:
Customer - What is wrong with my game system? The fan kicks into overdrive and the system freezes while I am trying to play a game.
Employee - Where is your game system located?
Customer - Well I keep it in a drawer in my desk to keep it out of the way.
So the question is what damage can heat cause on electronic devices? Obviously, it causes the performance to drop as we can tell due to the freezing/crashing electronics. It can damage the hardware of the devices because they are constantly working to generate some kind of image or instructions and therefore produce heat that needs to be properly ventilated away from the device.
One thing I noticed while examining my iPod Touch is that it does not contain a vent of any sort. Why is it that an iPod Touch is able to function in all weather conditions without a vent, while my PSP isn't?
After a few hours when the sun went down the movies finally began playing correctly. I also had a Playstation Portable sitting in the same bag as the NetBook. About 4 PM that day I attempted to play a game on the PSP, however the screen looked insanely damaged. The screen had appeared as if it was melting away from the intense heat. After a while the screen seemed to be fine, but it still did cause some concern.
This was my first real personal experience with heat damaging my electronics. If our computers did not have fans to vent the heat, what would happen to them? Are heat issues an overlooked area in regards to electronics?
When I worked at Game Stop we would get a variety of issues people had. When the Microsoft Xbox 360 was first released we had tons of people bring games back with rings etched into the DVDs. This was obviously because they were running the Xbox 360 standing up which has been known to cause those issues.
One thing that was an issue and a cause for concern was how people handled their game systems. Often, when those individuals came to us with issues with their machines they tell us they stick their Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 into an enclosed area. Allow me to demonstrate:
Customer - What is wrong with my game system? The fan kicks into overdrive and the system freezes while I am trying to play a game.
Employee - Where is your game system located?
Customer - Well I keep it in a drawer in my desk to keep it out of the way.
So the question is what damage can heat cause on electronic devices? Obviously, it causes the performance to drop as we can tell due to the freezing/crashing electronics. It can damage the hardware of the devices because they are constantly working to generate some kind of image or instructions and therefore produce heat that needs to be properly ventilated away from the device.
One thing I noticed while examining my iPod Touch is that it does not contain a vent of any sort. Why is it that an iPod Touch is able to function in all weather conditions without a vent, while my PSP isn't?
Comment
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Comment by Ashryne on August 1, 2009 at 12:12am -
I had a similar experience. I was gaming on my Asus laptop before (which does have fairly decent ventilation). When I went to move my laptop my hand got burned. I swear whenever I turned that machine on and ran a game or demanding program my room would get about 20 degrees hotter.
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Comment by Walter Ulysis Melons on July 31, 2009 at 11:58pm -
tell me about it! I overworked a voodoo3dfx video card with no cooling system and burned my hand when removing it later. A nice first degree burn. I was only running Unreal Tournament but still, ouch! I think your Iphone has a copper heat sink that transmits the heat straight into your hand, the reason it doesn't; feel hot is because it is spread out over a large area as in the surface area of the phone.
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Comment by Gavin Roskamp on July 31, 2009 at 12:48pm -
@gypkap - The MacBook (Aluminum, White, Black, and the one model of Unibody) all have a fan, it is in the back.
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Comment by Solomon on July 31, 2009 at 11:52am -
Yeah, it's best not to use your laptop in the sun, or on sunny days. I try not to use it outside at all. We had\have A heat wave here and my CPU temp was higher then normal.
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Comment by gypkap on July 31, 2009 at 10:04am -
No iPod I've seen has a vent. They radiate heat through their metal cases. Old ones like my 20 gig iPod just radiate through the metal back of the case.
I have an engineering degree, and years ago learned way too much about convection, conduction and radiation of heat.
If your Netbook has a plastic case and no apparent fan like my wife's Macbook, you may have big problems in hot weather, because her laptop has no fan and can only radiate heat through the plastic case, and can have the same problems your Netbook had.
Fans get rid of heat by convection. My Toshiba laptop has a fan, and it doesn't overheat as long as the case vents aren't blocked (say, by using the laptop on a rug or a bed, which my daughters have done in the past).
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Comment by Kennedy Roberts on July 31, 2009 at 6:22am -
I'm no expert on this kinda thing but I have an iPod touch and I think why they probably don't have a fan or vent is because (I think) it uses flash memory and has no slots for disks and besides the two ports at the bottom is virtually sealed. Where a netbook may not have a cd drive but nonetheless is DEFINITELY not sealed. And a PSP has the disk drive and the card reader and all those ports and such. I'd say it's just your best bet not to leave anything in a hot car, and if you ABSOLUTELY have to put them in a place where their not going to get tons of heat like under the seat on in the glovebox. Because what would you really rather do. Carry your device around a little or risk it to E-Heat Stroke?
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Comment by Tedd on July 31, 2009 at 4:03am -
I'm not an expert but here goes.....Heat effects electrical resistance. As the heat rises, electrical conductivity reduces (Resistance increases) which causes a poor performance. In your example of the PSP left in the car, As you may know a car gets super hot inside when left in direct sunlight due to the greenhouse effect. The LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) works by an electrically charged liquid. When this heats up it expands and is not able to work properly. Let it cool for a few hours and, usually, it will return to normal. Scientists are very close to creating a diamond material that will allow much higher temperatures in electronics. Diamonds are able to dissipate a large amount of heat with little resistance. Now that a new method of creating synthetic diamond "sheets" has been perfected to replace silicon currently used in computer parts, it's only a matter of time before computers will be able to handle many times the heat they can now and because of this be able to run at a much higher speed.
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Comment by Ollie Mallard on July 31, 2009 at 3:45am -
I left my iPod Touch in a car all day in Florida on vacation one day when we went to a them park. It was 36 degrees Centigrade outside (96.8 F) and about 46 degree C in the car (114 F). The iPod was too hot to touch but still worked flawlessly.
Ollie =]
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