Safe to charge cold laptop when you get home?

[pi6xjdskfa]

Hi,

I often have to leave my Macbook Pro 14" in a case in the car trunk in freezing temps as I go about my work and when I get
home I am wondering if I should wait for 1-2 hours to get the laptop to room temperature before plugging it into my
Caldigit T3 dock or apple charger.

I read somewhere the batteries go through expansion or some issues when subjected to freezing cold temps and that you should be careful about temp changes.

Thanks

 

[Apple_Robert]

You should wait until the Mac is room temp.

 

[ignatius345]

I got curious and was surprised to find that Apple says it's OK to store this machine at as low as -13°F!

But yeah, like @Apple_Robert says you might want to let it warm up gradually at room temp before you apply heat like that.

 

[pi6xjdskfa]

Reason I asked is my 2+ year old Macbook 2019 battery will pretty much die when the temperature dips and will not start up UNLESS i jump start it by plugging into a power source. The battery then seems to show full capacity. I do not want the same thing to happen to this new laptop so I am trying to see if optimized battery charging is good when I bring it in or just wait an hour after getting home before plugging it in. Or maybe the Caldigit T3 charging power of about 67 watts will be ok.

 

[Ruggy]

You could try keeping it in something insulated.
A freezer box keeps frozen food cold for about 6 hours but its insulating properties mean it'll probably keep your Macbook above freezing too
There's also a question with electronics about condensation. It isn't airtight so if it starts somewhere warm then gets cold quickly the air inside will drop its moisture inside the machine.
They should be warmed and cooled slowly with the air allowed to move in and out so this doesn't happen.
I've seen a screen cloud up from the inside and if you've ever seen a house suffer 'thermic shock' the amount of water is really impressive.
Try and keep it well insulated is a whole lot easier.

 

[piattj]

When I get new kit delivered, I always leave it unboxed for a couple of hours to 'warm up', prevent possible thermal shock.

 

[TechRunner]

As someone born and raised in a cold weather climate, I always let my tech warm before doing much of anything with it in the winter, especially freshly delivered tech, like @piattj noted. I know someone who took a hair dryer to their "frozen" tech to speed up the process. Not sure of the effectiveness of that, to be honest.

 

[Dfds]

I think the best approach would be something along the lines suggested by @Ruggy to insulate it as much as possible while in your car then let it adjust to room temp once you take it inside.

 

[solouki]

Hi all,

I guess it depends on how cold "cold" is, say -50C is probably most likely significantly different than 0C when coming in from the cold outdoors, but I've always been more concerned with humidity and condensation than thermal shock (which I think is probably a smaller concern for electronics designed to operate in the ambient temperature range of 10C to 35C and be stored in the range of -25C to 45C).

Until the internals (motherboard, etc.) are water-proofed at the manufacturer, then I've always been careful when returning indoors from an extended stay at a cold outdoor temperature to allow the computer to warm up inside a dry bag before turning it back on -- the reason being I didn't want the cold computer to condense moisture from the humid indoor air on the internals of the computer, hence the reason for the dry bag.

You can probably tell if this is likely for any particular case if you see moisture condensing on the aluminum case of the MBP since aluminum is so good at heat transfer. If this doesn't happen, then it is unlikely that the motherboard will be condensing moisture on itself so you then probably don't need the dry bag. But if you see moisture condensing on the MBP's aluminum case, then I'd definitely put it in a dry bag to let it warm to room temperature.

In summary, in my opinion it may not be enough to just allow your computer to warn up before using it, you should allow it to warm up in an environment that is not humid to avoid any condensation during this warm-up period.

... just my two cents worth of free advice.

Solouki

 

[rovostrov]

This reminded me of something I saw recently that might help. It looks like the 13" version would fit the 14" Macbook but you'd want to verify that. PHOOZY CASE

 

[piattj]

I was a Field Engineer for a major IT company and we found that HDDs shipped to site failed frequently if they were installed immediately after arriving onsite. The policy changed to leave the HDD box open for 4 hours before installing. Failure rate fell dramatically.