Extreme Cold

**trinybwoy** · 08-19-2009, 06:06 PM

Originally Posted by sergatiuk

wrap you pc in wool...
seriously though... wrap your pc in a wool cloth, natural wool (not chemically processed).
natural wool has amazing isolating ability, and is the only natural material that preserves the heat of whatever it contains while isolating the temperature outside. however wool can generate electro-static, so what id recommend you is make the pc case out of wood and then wrap it in wool. you should have absolutly no problem with any HDD or MOBO or any other component ... (i dont know about the monitor though...)

i will give the wool aspect a try.

i have a 320gb secondary hdd that stores all my music; i am worried about this drive.
my main hdd is a 32gb ssd.

**sergatiuk** · 08-19-2009, 06:22 PM

Originally Posted by trinybwoy

i will give the wool aspect a try.

i have a 320gb secondary hdd that stores all my music; i am worried about this drive.
my main hdd is a 32gb ssd.

just keep in mind, the thicker the wool is the better the isolation and temperature preservation.
also make sure there is something to isolate the wool from the internal components, plastic is not good, metal can be used as long as its grounded, and wood is the best...

btw, sheep wool is the best and least pricey for this purpose, however lama (alpaca) wool is also excelent...

**sergatiuk** · 08-19-2009, 08:24 PM

another idea ...
i believe it is possible to write a very simple script that will run from a bootable disk or a flash drive, a script that will warm up the entire system, spin the HDD at full speed, "benchmark" the CPU, ram and graphic card, a few seconds of such a script should warm up the system enough for it to be fully usable ...

i am not a coder but im sure such a script could be found somewhere in the linux community...

**malcom2073** · 08-19-2009, 08:27 PM

Perhaps get a simple resistive heater plate for the hard drive, put it right over top of the bearing pack just to get it warm enough to spin up. Put it on a temperature sensor and the ignition of your car. If you're really creative you can rig it to warm for a certain period of time before the computer tries to boot.

I've been thinking about doing that here, it will get down into single digits (F not C) in the winter and I've on occasion had issues with my hard drive spinning up.

**sergatiuk** · 08-19-2009, 08:46 PM

i didnt read too much about it... but with some additional configuration these might work for warming up the system ....

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...tno=520&pgno=0

**Punky** · 08-19-2009, 10:11 PM

i'm sorry but i wouldn't recommend the wool idea. Even if its cold outside, your pc will eventually warm up, with the wool in place it will probably overheat very quickly.

it is possible to use a microcontroller + sensors + heater and some simple coding to keep your HD warm, but this will constantly eat up your battery and will drain it, but i guess you can also monitor the voltage and turn off accordingly.

is it worth the trouble? depends on u.

**nobb** · 08-20-2009, 01:38 AM

Wool sounds like a fire hazard. When it's -50C outside, no matter how much wool you have, after your car has been sitting for a while everything will still be at -50C. From my experience, the EE25 is good down to about -30C to -40C (there are two versions, oem and ruggedized). For -50C, I think not even an automotive grade drive will work. SSD is the way to go.

**sergatiuk** · 08-20-2009, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by nobb

Wool sounds like a fire hazard. When it's -50C outside, no matter how much wool you have, after your car has been sitting for a while everything will still be at -50C. From my experience...

natural wool is NOT flamable... as a matter of fact, if there is no actual fire, wool CANNOT burn.
also wool does not heat, it doesnt make the temperature of the PC warmer or cooler, it preserves the temperature of the object it contains ... and therefore in the summer when its +40C, how amazingly inside the wool its gonna be cooler ... just like the cashmere goat that lives in the himalayas ... -50C at night and +50C during the day ... or the sheep in the desert (;
just make sure u have all your regular fans in place (CPU)

**nobb** · 08-20-2009, 08:50 PM

Yea but still, putting an insulator around the hard drive is not a solution. You can't compare a goat to a hard drive, lol. The goat produces heat and it's coat keeps the heat in. When your hard drive is powered down, it is not generating heat, so it will eventually cool down to ambient. After a long time sitting in the cold, the hard drive itself will STILL cool down to -50C no matter how good of an insulator you put around it (unless it's a vacuum). Basic thermodynamics...

**sergatiuk** · 08-20-2009, 09:26 PM

the idea is not to isolate the HDD, but the whole case...if u use a wooden case and then wrap the wooden case in wool, ull be amazed at what wool can do ...
as an experiment, take 2 bottles of water, freeze them in the freezer. then take them out and wrap one of them with thick natural wool, keep them both in room temperature, and see how much longer the one in the wool will stay frozen.
what im trying to say is, after the first time u run your pc in wool it will preserve its temperature after the use, the next morning it will still be warm enough to start right away...
2 years ago i was a sales person in a wool company, and i did alot of research about the topic... IT WILL WORK !