Are there any potential issues that could arise with leaving a laptop in storage in 80-88 degree Fahrenheit temps for two months? (No direct sunlight; AC turned on but thermostat at quite warn setting)
Also what if, say, 93 F in the shade? What’s the max temp a turned-off laptop can withstand long term?
The manual or other documentation will specify this. If you don’t have that, it’s probably available on the manufacturer’s website.
I have a fairly new Dell notebook computer, and its manual says:
Temperature range
Operating: 0°C to 35°C (32°F to 95°F)
Non-operating: –40°C to 65°C (–40°F to 149°F)
Based on that, you’d be OK but you should check your computer’s own specs to be sure.
No issues whatsoever.
That laptop probably already sailed across an ocean inside a sweltering steel container.
The 149 mentioned above is getting into dangerous ranges. Some types of solder melt at 180ish and im sure joins with any stress or pressure will pop a bit below that.
There’s no solder in a laptop that melts at any temperature even remotely close to 149°F.
The laptop itself will be fine, but you’ll toast the battery.
Lithium ion batteries have great power densities and are lightweight, but even under the best of conditions their longevity sucks. For long-term storage, you want to discharge the battery down to about 40 percent. Higher or lower than that is bad. Ideally, you also want to keep the temperature under about 15 deg C (60 deg F). Up to roughly 25 deg C (around 80 F) isn’t too bad, but things go south pretty quickly after that.
Store the battery at 100 percent charge and 90 deg F for two months and you’ll probably kill about half of the battery’s capacity. Store it at 40 percent charge at 90 deg F and you’ll still probably lose about 5 to 10 percent. Store it at 40 percent charge and 60 deg F and you’ll only lose a couple of percent, which is about the best you can do with lithium ion. They start dying from the moment they are made, and to some degree there’s not much you can do about it.
The most sensitive part of a laptop from a temperature perspective (in storage) is the display, and those are usually good for up to about 65 deg C or 150 deg F. If the laptop has been stored hot, make sure you let it cool down before powering it on.
Yeah, the battery isn’t going to like it. If you’re lucky and can take the battery out, put it somewhere else.
If not, be sure to completely turn off the laptop. Not just close the lid, hit the power button or whatever. These might just “sleep” the laptop which results in a trickle drain. In MS-Windows, select the power down option from the shutdown menu. RTFM
Eutectic solder (63% Sn, 37% Pb) melts at 183 °C (361 °F). Eutectic solder was used in >99% of electronic systems up until a few years ago. Because of RoHS directives, lead-free solders are now used (with the exception of U.S. military systems). These solders melt somewhere between 217 °C and 227 °C.