The unfortunate fact about most laptops today is that they are not designed to sit on your lap.

Laptops need air to freely circulate into and out of those cooling fans we hear. Using a laptop

on your lap blocks the cooling air, your legs or clothing or blanket effectively block the flow

causing much grief for the CPU. You may experience spontaneous shutdowns and shortened

laptop and battery life.

An even bigger problem with putting a laptop directly on your lap is your  lap is a haven for dust,

lint, pet hair and even human hair. For the same reason, never put a running laptop on the floor

or a blanket. This debris is readily sucked into your laptop's hungry fans clogging fan blades and

electronics heat sink fins. This debris in your laptop readily causes serous problems such as

spontaneous shut down, frequent fan cycling, excessive battery drain and shortened

electronics life. Any dust or debris inside your laptop is bad.

How to fix the situation?

First, if your laptop has been around a few months, or years, clean it internally. Look in the fans you

will likely see a coating of dust. Get a small screwdriver and a compressed air source. Remove as many

doors in the bottom as possible and blow the whole thing out through the fans and inlets using a jet of

compressed air. You may maybe amazed at the number and size of the dust bunnies and clouds of dust

that fly out of your laptop. Look inside for stubborn dust bunnies that are hiding and pull these out with

tweezers. I have seen expensive laptops that were discarded as having a terminal shutdown problem

totally cured after cleaning.

Next, stop using your dusty lap, blanket, carpet, or floor! Only put your laptop on a solid clean surface

as the original engineers intended. Use a laptop desk or laptop stand such as the AirDesk, you will find the

comfort is amazing and the ability to swing away the computer and to use a recliner is a huge convenience.

You do not need anything else, no expensive cooling plates, or vented trays. A solid clean surface

to use the laptop on and a clean interior is all your laptop wants to provide you with

many years of faithful service.

The author Edward MacLeod is an aerospace engineer with a thermodynamics background, programmer,

and laptop junkie, oh yea, he invented the AirDesk for his own use.

© 2004 - 2010 MTI Research Corporation, AirDesk is a Registered Trademark, patent pending. All rights reserved