[jotm]

It's sad that this is the norm. Aluminum is cheap, a bigger heatsink in a regular laptop (not Ultrabook) should cost what, a dollar more? Yet laptops are never designed for full load for hours. Just "mainstream" use. Even business "workstations" have the same problem. I've had to do hardware mods or undervolting on all laptops. WTF.

[squarefoot]

If only the industry stopped for one second to pursue angstrom thick laptops designs in favor of more thermally efficient ones. Laptops could have their CPU and chipsets facing downward in contact with the bottom cover entirely made of aluminium, then use a second aluminium made upper shell with small thick fins facing outward that when closed works as a sturdy cover to protect the lid carrying the screen but when opened it could be removed then attached to the lower one to increase thermal exchange with the environment. People obsessed with the thinnest hardware wouldn't touch it with a 20 meter pole but those in need of serious performance and mobility would probably find it interesting.

[jotm]

So, have the bottom cover be the heatsink? That actually sounds brilliant.

HP thinned the ZBook series by turning everything upside down and having the bottom be just a dumb panel instead of the main frame.

Sadly they, once again, used a standard, barely capable heatsink. It will run for days loaded, but it will go over 90 degrees and even throttle, which is unacceptable imo.

[squarefoot]

"So, have the bottom cover be the heatsink?"

Yes, the upper cover with the fins up should be designed to match perfectly with the lower one when mounted with the fins facing down. Cuts should be arranged so that the bottom cover rubber feet wouldn't prevent perfect surface contact. It would become a fairly large heatsink in which the size and combined thickness would likely be enough to counteract the small fins size and absence of fans. Battery/disk/memory covers on the bottom side would be accessible by removing the additional cover.