Laptop in hot car in New England in July. Bad idea?

[VirtualLarry]

I had a laptop in my vehicle, for a week or so, and it's been fairly hot here, 95F+ the last few days. I wanted to use it "on the road", and I finally got my DC-to-AC inverter, and spare AC charger cord for it, and I plugged them all in, and... no power light, power button won't do anything or light up, nothing. Removing the battery and plugged in doesn't help. And let me skip ahead, I went home and plugged it into my existing charger at home, and same deal, with or without battery, no power light, no power on.

So I guess that the laptop is toast? What are the odds that the SSD is intact, with those kinds of temps?

 

[whm1974]

Off hand I'm going to say yes, however I have left and use computers in hot rooms during summer before without them dying. Although not with SSDs in them.

 

[repoman0]

I've killed a laptop battery here in New England by leaving it on standby in the car for a few days ... opposite problem though, it was February.

Your car can get significantly hotter than 95 degrees. If it was parked in the sun it can hit 160+. Laptop could easily be toast.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It's not the 95F that kills the laptop, it's the 140F+ that the temps will spike to while the car is sitting in the sun. Those are the temps that ruin food, melt crayons, turn CD-Rs to slag, and kill pets and small children. :-(

 

[XavierMace]

Consider it a lesson learned and just be happy the battery didn't catch fire. It's 9:30a here, sun is just starting to come over my house. Car in the driveway is still half way shaded. Sunroof already reads 141f. I've seen temps over 200f on interior bits in full sun.

That said, the battery and screen is what usually fares the worst. I'm a little surprised it's completely dead, especially if it wasn't on. I'd open it up and poke around a bit.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Consider it a lesson learned and just be happy the battery didn't catch fire. It's 9:30a here, sun is just starting to come over my house. Car in the driveway is still half way shaded. Sunroof already reads 141f. I've seen temps over 200f on interior bits in full sun.

That said, the battery and screen is what usually fares the worst. I'm a little surprised it's completely dead, especially if it wasn't on. I'd open it up and poke around a bit.

That's what I don't exactly "get".

It wasn't in direct sun, it was in the back, wedged against a seat.

The battery that was in it while it was in the car, still works fine, when plugged into it's laptop twin. (I have two of these models.)

Likewise, battery from twin unit won't power-on or charge the one that was in the car.

 

[XavierMace]

That's what I don't exactly "get".

It wasn't in direct sun, it was in the back, wedged against a seat.

The battery that was in it while it was in the car, still works fine, when plugged into it's laptop twin. (I have two of these models.)

Likewise, battery from twin unit won't power-on or charge the one that was in the car.

It's still hot enough for adhesive to come loose and what not, which is why I suggested opening it up. I'm assuming the unit is cooled down at this point?

 

[fire400]

opposite is also true with laptops left in the cold, for some 'rugged' mobile computers, there is a unit that heats the computer up, powered by a battery, when it falls below a certain temp to keep the most important core components intact and operational for future use.

may have fared better in the trunk if vehicles can cut off the flow from direct or shared sunlight, compartment-wise.
i'd strip the computer down from interconnects and reassemble it if you have the time. a lot of times for random reasons untold, when i reassemble laptops after modifying or modding components, the computer doesn't power on, even after doing the same unit many times and making sure the contacts are freshly inserted into sockets, etc., but somehow it just magically works when I re-strip and reinsert everything, which means unfortunately going under the hood again.
and based on XavierMace's thoughts on screen and battery, that alone, gives me the shared idea not to replace the motherboard unless you must/want to, in attempts to bring the entire unit back to fruition, but if you have two models, you can test them between each other before ordering replacement parts.
when a computer bakes though, especially for a really long period of time, it stretches circuits and can expose pre-retail box defects and creates new defects which don't normally ever go back the same to status quo.

in terms of the SSD, i'd recommend moving the data off of that soon if it's mission critical. unless it's a military grade SSD, which can sit under 185+ F, considering that it was a consumer SSD, under a greenhouse effect dry spell for an extended period of time, which assumes whether it was operating or not, the cells were stressed under an 'overheating element' without ventilation. SSD may still be fine and run for another +10 years still, but only time will tell.

last but not least, maybe it wasn't the heat alone, it could have just been its time, and the sun helped speed up the stress test and force the unit under submission of weeding itself out from a reliable collection.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Not sure how or why, but I manged to get the laptop booting and limping along.

Seems like the SSD isn't feeling so great, lots of extended pausing.

Edit: Seems like the SSD has recovered, after a surface scan and a benchmark and whatnot, and it's mostly... working? Nice.

 

[ericlp]

Hmmm, Dunno, a lot of people living in vans and rv's with high temps and they have smart tv's, pc's, cell phones, even mini pc's. I know a guy that lives in his van has 3 monitors kinda a hightech dude... No problems...