Why Laptops sometimes not shutting down when Lid closed? Red-hot laptop from bag, why?

Question

I have had all kind of laptops such as Lenovo, IBM Thinkpad, Acer, Apple and many others -- with different operating systems. I have had this kind of problem with all of them: when I close the lid -- I think it closed the CPU etc and I put it to the bag -- the computer red-hot when I open it up from the bag. What kind of things can cause this and how can I be sure the computer does not start up in my bag or that it does not run when the lid is closed?

• My friend broke the memory -chip of his Macbook in this kind of circumstance.
• I have killed the motherboards in Lenovo Thinkpads and IBMs, getting kernel-panics and odd behaviour after this kind of circumstances

How can I avoid this behaviour? Does there exist laptops with instant-freeze so I can be sure the laptop does not get broken if I close the lid? Or is the only way to be sure the computer is not-running to shut it down?

Helper questions

1. Is this a design -problem?

2. Why is hardware/software not designed to be instant-kill-me-instant-relive-with-lid -ideology?

3. I can understand some limits to transferring information and caching things -- taking time -- but why not to have or at least try to have an instant mode to kill the computer after closing the lid so that the computer won't heat up even by accident after closing the lid?

Perhaps related

1. [OS-agnostic] Power on laptop without opening lid

2. [OS-related] Laptop not powering down when lid is closed, but when lid is opened

3. [OS-agnostic] Is there any way to execute something when closing the laptop's lid?

P.s. I am looking for a hardware-based/OS-independent solution to shut down or somehow freeze the computer because it looks like almost all laptops tend to have this problem, particularly when they become older.

Solution 1

The solution to your problem is to configure your OS to sleep/hibernate when the lid-switch is triggered. There is no OS-independent, hardware-based solution for your problem.

Solution 2

I had an older laptop that would heat up in my bag (It was an old HP). Sometimes the little latch wouldn't trigger the hibernate mode (I think the little piece of plastic was broken).

Unfortunately, I don't know of any non-OS way of hibernating a laptop. If you're looking for a completely OS independent solution, then shutting down is my answer.

If you're willing to compromise a little on that restriction and you've already tried configuring your OS to hibernate when the lid is closed, and it isn't hibernating, check to make sure the laptop registers a 'closed lid'. Just watch the lights on the laptop, or try to manually trigger it with a small screwdriver (it's usually a little button near the base of the screen). If it doesn't, you could just try to hibernate manually before closing the lid. If the button works, and closing the lid is recognized by the OS, then I'd check to make sure you're hibernating and not just turning the screen off.

If your computer is hibernating and still heating up, then I'd say it isn't actually hibernating properly, or there's some deeper problem. If that's the case, customer support for your laptop may have an existing solution, or you may have to resort to simply shutting down your laptop.

Hope that helps!

Solution 3

Specifically ThinkPads feature a completely independent embedded controller (abbreviated to EC by Lenovo in for example BIOS update release notes) handling tasks like fans and battery. Therefore, it should be possible to implement some kind of emergency shutdown procedure for Lenovo.

My first thoughts about such a procedure for protecting hardware is

1. provide access to all temperature sensors and fans to the EC and monitor them
2. implement an algorithm for detecting dangerous situations, e.g. quickly increasing temperatures on all sensors concurrently
3. in case the alarm is activated: enable all possible ways of throttling (force CPU+GPU lowest clock speed)
4. sending the shutdown ACPI call to the OS as soon as possible, similar to pressing the power key, but it's not exactly the same. This should prevent Windows from installing updates and Linux Desktop Environments to wait 60 seconds from user confirmation.
5. set a bit in some BIOS register to show an informational message to the user next time it boots up "your machines has shut down due to ..."
6. Give the OS 60 seconds to send the final ACPI command after halting, else shut it of hard. Or, when the temperature is increasing too fast: emergency forced power off.

Comments

[cyanic]

I had a Legend (old Lenovo) laptop that had some sort of BIOS-powered hibernate that required the use of a separate utility to make a hibernate partition. That's as close as you can come with hardware hibernation. It seems these days the hardware just makes the sleep mode available to the OS, and each OS chooses their methods to accomplish it.

[hhh]

...I am feeling that most Laptops are just ancient pile of junk: let's take my iPad as an example that I can in a way use as a Laptop with BT -keyboard, it never heats up and you use it as you like it. Perhaps in its core, this is a responsibility -problem, it is hard to claim whose fault it is now: HW manufacturer or OS? Just my ideas, I just feel that you need to find out as minimal End-user -toy so it cannot heat up by accident or better it cannot heat up, so frustrated to killing laptops because of this bug...perhaps keeping things in cloud/my-servers is the way to go.

[terdon]

To answer your helper questions, some people don't want that behavior. It tends to be one of the first things I switch off on a new laptop. For example, I like being able to close my laptop's screen if an external display is attached.

[cyanic]

Looking back at your question, I see "instant kill". You're comparing a laptop to a mobile device. Laptops are designed to use a lot of power, and generate a lot of heat, if you so choose to have a powerful processor and all the rest of that good stuff. Mobile devices are designed to be mobile, with enough power to get things done but still consuming little energy. <To be continued>

[cyanic]

<Resume from previous> Mobile devices are still fully on after you press the power button, with the CPU speed reduced and some hardware turned off. With a laptop, it's either fully on, on standby (RAM on only), or hibernate. No one quickly pulls out a laptop to check things, and then put it back in their bag or pocket. In either case, it's still implemented with the help of the OS. If your phone is frozen, the power button probably won't respond for many seconds, or at all. If you want a laptop that's like a mobile device, there are places you can find a tablet running Windows x86/64.

[cyanic]

Oh yeah, and the lid switch can be flaky. Some switches' ranges are so small if the lid is slightly ajar the computer turns back on. The power button is your best bet.

[ganesh]

Aye. Shut them down completely or are sure that the lid closes is set to hibernate/shutdown and that succeeds before you put it in a bag. Also never assume that anyone else's laptop is configured that way. (E.g. that is the first thing I disable on mine. Close lid, walk 15 meter, open lid --> If it has shut down I will curse loudly and fix that).

[hhh]

"There is no OS-independent, hardware-based solution for your problem." I feel there is: passive-cooling, low-end devices such as iPad i.e. selecting a proper device -- other? The device should not generate too much heat. Ofc I would like to find something more than just iPad or make other laptops work like that, without too much hacking.

[Ansgar Wiechers]

I think you think wrong. Tablets cover different use cases than laptops. The tasks many laptops are used for require far more performance than a tablet provides.

[cyanic]

For some reason that sounds familiar. I had Mac OS X installed on an HP laptop before, and if I run some processing intensive apps more often than not it would instantly die after reaching some temperature. I didn't fix the DSDT yet, so the critical temperature is always prematurely triggered. Maybe most laptops already have this implemented?

[tumchaaditya]

Well the iPad does not even come close to even basic laptops when it comes to processing power. So, it does not need as much cooling.

[Simon Kuang]

I remember that my old Satellite would have some BIOS trick where it would appear that there was no BIOS screen on hibernate resume.