Exploding Laptops

[Vinyadan]

Some time ago, my laptop went on strike, suddenly turned the power off and decided not to be turned on again for a couple of hours. It was instantaneous and there were no previous signals. Given that I was using it with external monitor and keyboard, and I had left some papers on its keyboard and a lamp near its vent, I supposed it had overheated. Right now, it has no problem whatsoever.

Then I asked myself if an overheated laptop could be a danger because of its battery. Any opinion on this?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

As long as your laptop still has the reflex to shut down when overheated it's not going to explode. And even if it didn't my money would be on some component of your processor or motherboard getting fried way before the battery starts giving in. And if the battery does give in I'd expect it to just stop being useful, and maybe to start leaking. But if the battery won't charge anymore it's not going to carry much of a current and it's going to stop getting hot (at least I hope so).

In summary: it's a thing that could happen, but it's in a long row behind other things that should happen sooner. Also: you probably need to open her up and clean or at this stage maybe replace the fan. Especially if she has been making noise. That should work wonders.

Not starting up again for hours is pretty weird though, sounds like you've got better overheating prevention than I do.

[factotum]

An overheating laptop will only get to around 100C before shutting itself down or crashing, and that's nowhere near hot enough to cause the battery to burn or explode. What will generally cause such a thing to happen is overcharging the battery, and modern batteries have circuitry on-board to prevent that happening--it's only if that circuit is faulty that fires become likely.