Temperature Chamber tests on mini-ITX boards and PSUs

**andrewb** · 01-19-2006, 01:43 AM

I thought you might be interested in this data...

We have a temperature test chamber where we test all our products -- the other day I did some testing on few popular mini-ITX motherboards and our M2-ATX power supply.

Cold_start = board will turn on
Cold_ride = start at 0C, ride temperature down

While all = boards worked OK on the high tem rage (up to 75-85C) here is what they did on the low temp end:

Model Cold_Start Cold_ride

motherboard
EPIA-5000 -30C -42C
EPIA-M10 K -35C -42C
EPIA-MII-10K -15C -42C
power supply
M1-ATX -42 -42C
M2-ATX -42 -42C

-42C is the lowest temp I can get with this test chamber.

All motherboards started to freak out around 0 C when heavy condensation occured. Forced air (fan) over the motherboard removed the condesation and no more crashes occured. Please note that I obtained this heavy condesnsation by opening / closing the door several times, this kind of violent humidity fluctuations are less likely in a car and that can be easily dealt with by blowing air over the motherboard (some 40x40 mm fans)

I did test a seagate laptop drive to -10C and then I stopped, was worried about data damage, that was a HDD with real data on it...

-Andrei

**Blue ZX3** · 01-19-2006, 01:52 AM

This is some nice info to read...Thx

**piabu** · 01-19-2006, 03:36 AM

The tolerances for temperature shown by the hardware far exceeds the temperature range that can be survived by this driver!

When it gets below -15C or above 75C, I would be more worried about my body parts than any hunk of electronic equipment. Ditto for debates about the G-forces that can be tolerated.

Still, thanks for posting that information.