Be careful. Youtube is full of sincere sounding video's like this. I ran in closed clamshell mode for a decade. During that period i would invariably run into all sorts of mods on the tube. Yet i never encounterd thermal issues the MBP's couldn’t handle. Nor, with monitoring, did I find CCM running more than a degree or 2 F higher than when open. I did run into battery issues. They don't appear to enjoy long periods of nor drain. Give the engineers at Apple some credit. Their laptops have run in CCM for a long time. I assume they design for this.
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Clamshell mode thermals
- Thread starter imrazor
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Has anyone found any more significant testing on this with regards to fan noise and throttling? Is clamshell similar enough that it doesn't matter or is open better for the best performance and lower fan noise? Are there any docks with fans built-in that are worth purchasing for better performance?
I noticed a number of people here mentioned using the Macbook Air M1 not just in clamshell mode, but in a stand that holds it vertically, which is what I'd like to do as well. Since there's no fan and heat naturally rises, is there any reason that, for cooling purposes, it might be better to orient the vertical Macbook with a particular side up (of the four possibilities)?
Something I saw online indicated that the main cooling would occur at the rear hinge (i.e. "out the back" behind the keyboard if you were operating it normally), which would seem to make it best to have that side facing up... but that was not an authoritative source (just a company who wants you to buy their covers!), so I'm not sure it's actually true. Here's the related image they post:
![61lb6vboteL._AC_SX679_.jpg]()
Something I saw online indicated that the main cooling would occur at the rear hinge (i.e. "out the back" behind the keyboard if you were operating it normally), which would seem to make it best to have that side facing up... but that was not an authoritative source (just a company who wants you to buy their covers!), so I'm not sure it's actually true. Here's the related image they post:
