3
votes
Stacking laptops
I might have to have two running laptops for work.
Desk space is at a premium. Right now I have my work laptop stacked on top of my personal PC on my desk ( tower, on its side, on a stand ).
Would a rack like this one, with a lap top on each shelf be enough to keep the magnets on the lids of each laptop from interfering with each other? What about protecting each laptop from the heat of the other laptop?
I already have a mechanical KVM. I will just need to buy one that accommodates more than 2 computers.
Please, let me know if I have overlooked any considerations.
Thank you.
Yes, that would work.
The magnets are much less powerful than you're probably thinking. They're only there to trigger a lid-closing sensor on the other side. You could place the laptops directly on top of each other and it'd be magnetically fine.
Heat is the bigger concern. Anything that keeps them a couple of inches apart and doesn't block the fans is good enough, unless you have very hot laptops.
Might depend on the model. I have seen the magnets trigger the lid-close action (e.g. sleep) on a laptop stacked directly on top. Those were Dell Latitudes, maybe other vendors have weaker magnets.
You could just stack them rotated 180º to avoid that, but like you said, heat dissipation is the bigger issue.
Thank you!
I've rigged such setups using 8 children's blocks (4 under each laptop) and a USB fan I had lying around for extra heat dissipation. Works great provided you never need to lift the lid of the bottom laptop.
Have you considered a vertical laptop holder? I have this one and it has met all of my expectations. It's a little annoying to adjust to the right size, but once you do it once, it's done for good.
https://a.co/d/eF4Vn3h
I would love to do this with my work laptop, but I have to lift the lid to make the stupid thing wake up.
I wonder if there's some way I can trick the lid sensor.
If you're using Linux, you can configure that behavior with systemd.
I once accomplished this by physically removing the magnets that would trigger the lid sensor.
You should probably not do this on a machine you don't own.
You can’t change the closed lid behavior? Windows and MacOS have settings that change what your computer does when you close the lid. Maybe you can change it to not go to sleep when the lid is closed.
Edit: Here's a PC Magazine article on how to do this for Windows.
Very interesting design! I'll have to measure my space and make a list of what I want things to be like.
Thank you!
Like @em-dash says, anything that allows for some airflow between them should be pretty much fine, so that shelf looks good to me - as long as they’re not literally resting on top of each other I wouldn’t worry too much unless they were high power draw portable gaming/workstation machines.
Putting a small fan beside the rack to keep the air moving and/or stacking them side by side on their edges is also an option if you’re really concerned about the heat rising up from the one lower down (I’ve seen it done with six laptops in a cheap IKEA plate rack, because that many really would have cooked the top one if they’d been stacked above each other!), but again I’d only be thinking about that if they were hotter than the average laptop. Plus not every machine’s cooling system likes being oriented on its edge, so that’s another thing to check if you are going that direction.
Thank you!