can constant game playing on a laptop damage the hardware? any harm?

I'm not an expert but I believe that gaming does push the laptop to it's limits. That is why you see an increase in temperature while playing or doing any other CPU/GPU intensive work.

Saying that, I don't believe that it is harmful as long as you allow the air to flow freely in and out of the laptop.

My brother just upgraded his desktop graphics card (to a GForce 5200, or something like that), and he was worried about his card getting overheated when running 3dmark tests and/or gaming, because it was throwing out an error and rebooting during 3dmark05. I will say here what I told him, and that is that I just don't recommend overclocking your equipment whatsoever, and keep it within warranty specs, and you should have zero problems with gaming or anything else. If you for some reason do, then get it replaced by the manufacturer, because it's got a problem.

I've gamed for 9 hours strait on a notebook that had 128mb integrated video ram (ATI 9000IGP), which to me is obviously not really meant for gaming, and it ran fine the whole time, and still runs great. Now I have a notebook a lot more suited for gaming with 128 dedicated video ram (ATI x700), and it has also lasted for 9+ hours with the most strenuous gaming I could put to it, without a glitch, without shutting itself down or anything. I trust that the manufacturers test their systems for gaming ability (especially notebooks with higher end graphics capabilities), and that they design them to be kept cool enough under normal gaming situations (ie: not blocking the cooling vents), that they won't get damaged or have shorter life spans.

I did warn my brother that since his desktop was giving an error, that he might be pushing it too hard for its capabilities, and he might need to return it for a better one (or even just a replacement, to be sure), but he’s satisfied that it plays UT2k4 and “Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory” well enough to suit him just fine.

Just posting my experience.

-Ransom

WEll, you also have to put it in perspective, Ransomed. For instance, how about the Sager 9880? Playing it for long periods results in massive overheating. On my Z70Va though, I can play for hours with no problems. It just depends on the components and the design of the laptop. If you get a very powerful laptop with components literally jammed into it (multiple hard drives, poor cooling, etc.) then you're going to have problems. Make sure you do your research on a laptop if you're planning to get it, since most (decent) reviews will report any problems they have running benchmarks like 3DMark05.

It's a well known fact that the only thing that can damage a laptop is its user!

You can't say a laptop wasn't ment to play games, in general it can and is fine at playing them, jsut laptops tend to be behind, for example the x700 is pretty much the ebst you can get on a 15 inch and on 12 inch a 200m(x300 integrated). While desktops already have 256mb graphic cards and more. Laptops are generally behind in technology since it is ahrder to implement into a smaller container.

My really old pc is 133mhz, Palms go up to 433mhz maybe even 800mhz already and they got more hd space and probably a better graphic card then that old pc, but that old pc can play games jsut fine, not the newest but still can play. Same goes for the laptop.

Overheating generally shouldn't be a problem since they have saftey mechanisms but to be safe follow the following steps:

Don't Use your laptop in the Sahara Desert

Don't use your laptop in North/South Poles(actually the gravity field might EMP there too)

Don't play the following games: Break the laptop, Crash the laptop, Laptops can fly, What is the harness of my laptop, swimming, any sport activity involving using the laptop as a ball

Don't use your laptop Underwater

Don't use your laptop where temperature changes 50 or more degrees instantly

See, what breaks it is using it, if you don't use it at all it'll be fine. On my desktop pc I had a MAxtor HD and i played games on that pc, but once I had alot of fast downlaods going like 15 going at 100k+ and they were accelerated. This caused my Partition Tables to crash and etc. Games like any other is a program, it jsut has more code involved then msot, thjat is all.

I'm off to play Desktops can fly, chow ^_^

GREAT post ask1about! User rep increase for the good response and great laugh.

Redmumba, in my opinion, a notebook shouldn't be clocked (stock) for overheating, even when playing games. It should not be able to overheat under normal conditions. If it does, then the manufacturers screwed up something in the design/production. I find it hard to believe that Sager would produce a notebook that overheats when playing games, since graphics seem to be something that people are highly intent on when purchasing such a machine. Who in their right mind would want any computer that overheats!? You wouldn't find me caught dead at a Lan party with an overheating notebook!

-Ransom