Are rear cooling exhausts on a laptop bad for display?

[tj_314]

I'm in the market for a new work machine. I realized that many laptops these days (especially lenovo and hp ones) have cooling exhausts configured in such a way that the hot air blows directly onto the dispay. Essentially, the exhausts are located in the hinge area. I am concerned about the longetivity of such approach.

 

For the sake of discussion, let's consider a specific laptop (one that I'm interested in) https://lnv.gy/2N0Fhcn . The config I am interested in is 1080p display, i7-8550U , RX-550, 8GB ram, 256 pcie ssd. I care about serviceability and longetivity. I am not interested in buying a new laptop every five years, especially because it will run Linux most of the time.

 

So, about the cooling. A couple of points: While I am aware that the cpu tdp is just 15W (and in my workload the discrete gpu will only be used once or twice a week, so the temps of the air blown towards the display won't be too crazy), I do know enough about displays to be sure whether it's a problem or not. Also, I am unsure how the heat affects adhesives in the display area (or general lid area). In my old sony vaio, the display cable was secured in place with a bit of sticky tape. I imagine the heat from the fan in this thinkpad would eventually soften such adhesive and unglue it.

 

What are your thoughts on this? Should I be concerned? Or am I just overthinking this?

[markr54632]

I wouldn't worry about that too much. Honestly 5 years is expecting way too much from modern laptop design. Shoot for 2-3 years service life. Thermals on that design are barely tolerable. It severely thermal throttles under synthetics, 

 

As for servicability it is pretty easy to get to the 2 ram slots, the 1 m.2 slot, and the 2.5" bay. That's about all your going to be able to touch. Battery is glued in, but accessible.

[graybandit]

Probably overthinking it, tbh. I still use a Razer Blade 2013 quite a bit, and it's suffered no ill effects from ~6 years of service with the screen venting setup, same as many Apple computers with the same setup. You may need to replace the battery (see above reply about drawbacks with that specific model) but otherwise it should do fine.