Thread: Cold weather and computers

15-40°F boots to BIOS or windows load screen then keeps rebooting about 1-7 times

OMG! I'm not the only one! I get this on the really cold days too. What the hell could it be!

I have the setup IntellaWorks is talking about. My OS is on a Sandisk ExtremeII and all my media is on the removable drive. I still get this looping reboot problem. So it can't be the hard drive, unless the CF card can't handle that cold either.
That doesn't really make sense to me though, because it did start the boot process, meaning the CF is being read.

IntellaWorks. The Extreme3 card cannot be set as a fixed disk and therefore windows cannot see a 2nd partition on it.
If you use an Extreme2 card you will sacrifice a little speed but be able to partition it. I currently have the OS with EWF on drive C and a second 150meg partition on on the same CF card with all my apps on them.
The amount of writting to this partition is still very minimal. I would say comparable if not less than the amount a camera would write to the CF card. Config changes here and there, the odd software update and once everytime you shutdown to save what song you were playing last.
I have had this setup running since Christmas and I think it's great. The current frontends don't really take advantage of this scenario, but that will come one day.
So I suggest buy an Extreme 2 card, not a 3. My boot up times are still very quick. I'm hearing music from centrafuse in under 30 seconds after post. This will only improve with a shell other than explorer.

WeatherBoy. Looking at both our sigs, the components we have in common are:

Eden board
ram
usb wifi
usb gps

I think that narrows the problem down to one of these components.
What are you using for a power regulator/supply? I have a fear my carnetix isn't supplying enough power during the bootup process.

Your problems must be in the drives or the power supply. I have done some extreme overclocking experiments, where the entire motherboard is immersed in supercooled (-40 F or lower) mineral oil, and believe me, the colder they are, the better they run. Mechanical things like drives, however don't like cold, especially if the temperature swings fast. I have seen condensation from temperature changes literally rust a hard drive head to the platter. So it is a good idea to have the drive removable, and take it out of the car when temps are going to drop below freezing, or if it will be sitting in the sun baking.

i dont know about during the winter, but in the summer with all the heat, maybe a temp/ghetto solution would be to get a decent sized case fan and power it with 1 or 2 9V batteries. should be able to run it for a while if your lucky. or if its possible without draining the battery, just run it off the car's power system (always on of course).

becuase im sure that many people here (well, some maybe) have their comp's hidden away (like behind the dash?) and it would be a PITA to have to take the drive out every day.

I live in Saskatchewan and it gets to 40 below quite often during the winter and extremely hot during the summer.. My solution to this is to make the computer and display (when I get one) removable and just bring them in at night and use them in the house to update playlists and add new stuff... I'd leave all the wiring and connectors in the car for easy reconnection. That's also the reason I've decided to go with the inverter to power the computer, then it's a simple matter to bring it inside and plug it into standard power... So when I bring it inside I just plug it in and connect it to my network and use remote desktop from my main rig to do everything that I need to do..

i'd like to propose another solution.

First let me point out that most electronics have a pair of environmental specs. They have one set for the range over which you can opperate the device and another over which you can store it.

Now concider that the HVAC in your car is really powerfull and can make it comfortable in just a few min.

If you install a switch somewhere that will disable the startup of you computer with the ignition you can hold it off on really cold mornings or really hot afternoons until the car's internal temp is a little more reasonable.

I have found that my setup has boot up trouble when it is very cold <20F (yea i know, but it's cold for MD) but if i wait 5 min and then start it after the heat is pumping it's no problem.

If you wanted to get real slick you could get a couple of thermal switches that would interupt the turn on switch if temp was out or range. This would be pretty simple, just a matter of finding the right switch.