I cooked two HP 17 inch laptops running finite element analysis tools for --the irony-- a thermal management project. They just couldn't handle the sustained l

I cooked two HP 17 inch laptops running finite element analysis tools for --the irony-- a thermal management project. They just couldn't handle the sustained load, even with external fans aimed at their air intake areas. I've always used self-built desktop towers. When it's time to upgrade we build them five or ten at a time so every system matches. It makes for a much simpler build and bring-up experience. In this case I needed to continue working, and so I decided to task two HP laptops on the network as external processors for the FEA tool. I have to say, they worked great for about four weeks. During that time they experienced about 18 hours per day of continuous processing. Fun while it lasted.