Do fanless laptops have a shorter life?

My Acer Aspire S5 laptop fan failed, and its replacement fan also failed within days. After that I ran it fanless for ~3 years without problems. Actually, the machine crumbled apart mechanically, but it was probably not caused by the extra heat.

The extra heat may have some impact, but I think it will be negligible. Other factors like overall laptop quality will probably have more impact.

I always install tpFanControl, which effectively reduces my CPU fan speed to 0 RPM unless there is a lot of CPU load.

My laptops have lasted well beyond the 1-3 year warranty periods:

- Current T480s is nearly 6 years old. Used every day; powered on almost 24/7.

- Previous X1 Carbon was given to a friend, still working after a decade. (10 years + 10 months)

I've seen old spec laptopts used daily for 10+ hours for ages with no issues. They have protections or should have, depends on what brand you go for. Stay with known brands and you should be ok.

generally no, but the performance tends to be more inconsistent due to their typical reliance on throttling methods to control thermals.

I have a fanless Asus ZenBook from 2014 that I use everyday and still works flawlessly.

What do you think the life of a laptop with a fan is?

I’d bet that the M-series MacBook Pros will have a slightly longer useful lifespan than the M-series MacBook Airs, but it’s just because they probably have more RAM, etc.

That said I think my M-series Air will last longer than any computer I’ve ever owned in my life before.