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If your laptop consumed that much power it would be too hot to use on your lap and also would probably damage whatever surface you put it on. Just because a pow

by orev 8y ago

If your laptop consumed that much power it would be too hot to use on your lap and also would probably damage whatever surface you put it on. Just because a power supply has a max rating of X Watts doesn’t mean it’s always using that much. Even then, 200w for a laptop is an enormous amount. Maybe you meant LED bulbs that emit the equivalent light of a 100w bulb? That would be much closer to standard laptop power consumption.

noir_lord 8y ago
Indeed. I have a Thinkpad that has an i7-7700HQ, that's a 35W TDP beast and even under very heavy load I still get 90 minutes out of a 72 watt-hour battery and it gets pretty warm (and the TP has excellent cooling), 200W would melt your legs.
- close04 8y ago
  I guess that's what active cooling is for. So your legs don't have to take the brunt of it. Anyway, a laptop's power consumption isn't concentrated in one chip. So combining the wider area that dissipates heat with the fact that hot spots are actively cooled means a laptop can easily go over the above mentioned 60W for prolonged periods. And power consumption tends to add up from sources that are otherwise not very power hungry themselves (compared to a CPU or GPU). A few W with the LCD, a few with the SSD/HDD, etc.
- xxs 8y ago
  Intel TDP is a sham - it's based on the published non-turbo frequency which is 2.8GHz. My primary laptop has its CPU undervolted (offset) by whopping 170mv, effectively around 30% lower power consumption.
derefr 8y ago
> If your laptop consumed that much power it would be too hot to use on your lap A lot of laptops do actually get too hot (and are too heavy) to effectively be used on laps. Some even require two concurrent power connections from two separate power bricks in order to charge!
- stuaxo 8y ago
  Pretty much all laptops have a sticker underneath that tells you not to use them on a lap. My old dusty i7 laptop did get much much too hot though.

by orev 8y ago

noir_lord 8y ago

Indeed. I have a Thinkpad that has an i7-7700HQ, that's a 35W TDP beast and even under very heavy load I still get 90 minutes out of a 72 watt-hour battery and it gets pretty warm (and the TP has excellent cooling), 200W would melt your legs.

close04 8y ago
I guess that's what active cooling is for. So your legs don't have to take the brunt of it. Anyway, a laptop's power consumption isn't concentrated in one chip. So combining the wider area that dissipates heat with the fact that hot spots are actively cooled means a laptop can easily go over the above mentioned 60W for prolonged periods. And power consumption tends to add up from sources that are otherwise not very power hungry themselves (compared to a CPU or GPU). A few W with the LCD, a few with the SSD/HDD, etc.
xxs 8y ago
Intel TDP is a sham - it's based on the published non-turbo frequency which is 2.8GHz. My primary laptop has its CPU undervolted (offset) by whopping 170mv, effectively around 30% lower power consumption.

derefr 8y ago

> If your laptop consumed that much power it would be too hot to use on your lap A lot of laptops do actually get too hot (and are too heavy) to effectively be used on laps. Some even require two concurrent power connections from two separate power bricks in order to charge!

stuaxo 8y ago
Pretty much all laptops have a sticker underneath that tells you not to use them on a lap. My old dusty i7 laptop did get much much too hot though.