Cold weather operators, how do you keep the 'puter warm?

**pir8radio** · 03-04-2008, 09:37 AM

I use a panasonic Toughbook CF-19 in my car.... it has a built in heater element attached to the bottom of the hard drive.. This is from the factory, it uses relativity small amount of power just to keep the drive warm.. The cold is freaking out your computer not electronically but mechanically the drive is the only mechanical part, so if you can keep that warm you will be ok.

**shooter64738** · 03-04-2008, 11:17 AM

I'm pretty new to this car pc stuff, but I'm helping my son build a bonneville, complete with touch screen. I'm a savvy tech guy for the most part, but we went with a standard ATX motherboard I had laying around my shop. We have a boot image for XP on a 4 gig thumb drive, and set the MOBO to boot from USB device. It was 9*f here last night, and it was booting just fine. We have a removeable usb hard drive that contains media files. I will admit it boots slower off the flash drive than it does a hard drive, I assume because it's building a ram drive to hold the OS.

Just thought I would throw that out there. I've got a ton of questions to ask around, but thats been our solution for now.

**elBradford** · 03-07-2008, 03:43 PM

I'm still in the planning stages of my CarPC (Post #1 heh

) but its around 50% planned out. Where I live it normally doesn't drop below 0 F but I don't want to deal with cold startup issues really I don't commute a lot. My driving consists of 15-20 minute jaunts around town between school and work, etc and so I want to avoid any delay with my system booting up.

I'm going to place my CarPC below the passenger seat. There is a floor air vent down there that I was planning on routing OVER the PC. I want to hear your feedback on the idea of blowing the air INTO the case, so that in the winter the warm air can quickly heat up the components and in the summer it can quickly cool them down. Summers here get over 100 F, hotter still inside my black car.

The only problem I see with this is the possibility of such quick heating/cooling would shorten the life of the components. Does anyone have any feedback on this? Suggestions?

**rijk** · 03-10-2008, 10:53 AM

Originally Posted by pir8radio

The cold is freaking out your computer not electronically but mechanically the drive is the only mechanical part, so if you can keep that warm you will be ok.

I disagree, i use a SSD as os –disk. With zero moving parts. When its cold, it wont even show the bios, only the fan’s start spinning.

**rijk** · 03-10-2008, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by elBradford

There is a floor air vent down there that I was planning on routing OVER the PC. I want to hear your feedback on the idea of blowing the air INTO the case, so that in the winter the warm air can quickly heat up the components and in the summer it can quickly cool them down. Summers here get over 100 F, hotter still inside my black car.

In winter, you could get trouble with cooling in this way, or can you close the air-outlet ones de cpc is warm.

**nobb** · 03-10-2008, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by rijk

I disagree, i use a SSD as os –disk. With zero moving parts. When its cold, it wont even show the bios, only the fan’s start spinning.

Thats strange, what SSD are you using? Maybe there is a temperature sensor inside your drive which is electronically preventing it from operating (which you can hack)?

When you say "it wont even show the bios" I am guessing you means your system wont even get to the point of trying to POST? That sounds to be a motherboard problem, not the drive.

**vtecfelon23** · 03-10-2008, 01:15 PM

how bout putting some heated seat elements under the case and attach it to a timer. set it to initiate 20 mins before that morning commute, and should be good to go.

otherwise, for those of you who operate in below freezing temps on a regular basis, the thumbdrive boot option sounds like the best bet.

**rijk** · 03-11-2008, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by nobb

Thats strange, what SSD are you using? Maybe there is a temperature sensor inside your drive which is electronically preventing it from operating (which you can hack)?

I have the ssd for about 2 years now, so its a slow one (transcend 8 Gb 1.8”)
http://www.transcendusa.com/Products...pNo=3&LangNo=0

Originally Posted by nobb

When you say "it wont even show the bios" I am guessing you means your system wont even get to the point of trying to POST? That sounds to be a motherboard problem, not the drive.

Yes, thats what i mean. I agree, think too its the mobo.

**sxott** · 06-24-2008, 02:09 PM

I have a jetway nf3 board. It works 100% in the cold down to 8F, but the HDD won't.

I just figured you people would by SSD's. That is what I will do eventually. My current drive died this winter.

**Lithoss** · 06-24-2008, 06:59 PM

are you sure that its not posting? it could be that the computer is fine but your lcd isn't so you'd never see the post. does your pc usually beep on bootup? my lcd refuses to work in near freezing and below temps