Temperatures... too low?

[Eagleboy]

I have a box I made over the summer - C2D, yadda yadda yadda, and 5 hard drives (two of them raptors).

I also have a room in a house - said room has no heat. The house has heat, just the room doesn't. I have an electric heater, but I can only run it while I'm in the room and definitely not while I'm sleeping.

So, last night was the first cold night - my processor's idle dropped to 18C. Hey, great for the processor, right? But what about the hard drives? And my monitor? Will temperatures lower than 40F do damage to my components while they're running? If so, is there any company that makes a computer/monitor heater?

 

[peterhuang913]

The lower, the better.

 

[jonny_uk]

I have neve ever known someone to ask if theres a computer heater you can buy lol

 

[Eagleboy]

Not necessarily - a hard drive has moving parts in it. Lubrication, friction, etc etc. Lubrication will harden and seize up at certain temps, and when a hard drive powers on it will rise in temperature - if the hard drive is going from 10C off to 40C operating, then I'm sure thermal expansion won't be in the drive's favor. This is one of the reasons why a car engine is damaged the most during startup.

And at low temperatures, LCD monitors have slower refresh rates.

So, really I guess what I'm asking is how cold is too cold for a hard drive and how cold is too cold for an LCD monitor. I'm in a situation where potentially, my ambient room temperature may reach 0C.

 

[peterhuang913]

The hard drive and monitor each has temperature operating range. This can be found in the manuals. But yes, cold can be bad. But how can you live in a room with ambient temperature of 0c?

 

[Eagleboy]

But how can you live in a room with ambient temperature of 0c?

At night I keep the door open to the rest of the house and pile on the blankets. During the day, I have an electric heater right next to me that I can turn on when I'm in the room. (sleeping or leaving the room for an extended period of time with an electric heater on = BAD). My room used to be a patio, then a sunroom, and now it's a bedroom, so it didn't really get updated too much in between all that.

But, rent's only $475 /mo all utilities included - in a college town. And the rest of the house is beautiful (and heated).



I guess I'll have to look in the manual. If the operating temperature is in fact too low though, how do I go about remedying the situation? Does a computer-specific heater even exist?

 

[peterhuang913]

I don't think so. Just buy those small room heats and put it close to the case.

 

[veedubfreak]

As long as its not dropping below freezing, i doubt you'll have any problems. Now that the weather has finally cooled off here, i tend to keep my door and window open which keeps my apt around 65-70 and i just let my computer heat up the place.

 

[Cappy]

hehe die hard computer geek " Hey its freezing in here but my computer is kool " Place a fan into the entry way to pull in some heat Or run you some heat duct through the attic and into the room cieling