Computer in a warm room

Amaru

I got a new pc yesterday, and the only place i space for it in my house is the same room we use for drying clothes(they sit on a rack, and are dried by a radiator). The room is about 15 foot square, and the computer is on the opposite side to the radiator. It gets to about 40 degrees in there when we have the boost on the radiator, and its on for about 8 hours a day, always at night(i.e when its a bit colder outside).

My question is, will this temperature jeapordize my pc in any way? In the manual it says not to place the computer near a radiator, but i figure that that means directly beside, and with my setup, the distance and temperature aren't sufficient to cause concern.

stevenmu

There's 2 things I'd be concerned about here. One is condensation, if you have the room hot to dry out clothes and then let it cool down at night, you're likely to get condensation on cold objects and moisture is very, very bad for PCs (it's probably not too good for the room itself either but that's another issue). I'd guess the at least the windows probably mist up pretty pretty badly when you let the room cool at night. This could also build up inside your PC and damage it.

Second 40 degrees is pretty hot to run a PC in. The CPU in the pc generates a lot of heat (more heat per area than an iron does) . It's generally cooled by a heatsink, which works kind of like the thin fan bits you see on radiators, they basically have a large surface area which allows them to transfer more heat to the air around them cooling the cpu. A CPU fan blows air over the heatsink to make this even more efficient. If the air being blown over the heatsink is too hot, than it won't take any more heat out of the heatsink meaning it can't cool the CPU which will quickly overheat and fry. Having said that most modern CPUs will automatically slow down or switch off before they get too hot. The way you use the PC also affects how much heat it generates, gaming generates lots, internet/word processing etc doesn't. One thing you could probably do is monitor the system(inside the case) and CPU temperatures as the room warms up and see how hot they get (download motherboard monitor here ) if you don't have any software to do this. I'm pretty sure that once your CPU stays below 65 degrees it'll be ok, but maybe you should check up on your particular CPU first.

ressem

Mightn't be to great for the person using the PC either. Humidity + heat = Mites + mould.

Amaru

Considering i wasn't really expecting any good answers on this, thats actually a pretty solid answer!

Now, a couple of things which you brought up which i'll address. Firstly, condensation isn't really a problem. The clothes are after being spun in the washing machine, so they're not really "wet" per ser, like dripping, but rather just very damp. The amount of moisture doesn't create condensation, and the room wouldn't be described ever as humid. Its a dry heat, like a sauna. There's also no problem with mildew or mould, and thats in 4 years of doing this.

Secondly, maybe i was being a bit liberal by saying 40 degrees. Thats a rough estimate, seen as i have no idea really what different temperatures are like. I'll say this though, when the rad is on, you can keep your hand on it quite comfortably, so maybe my guess of 40 is a bit high. After that, remember that the computer and rad are on opposite sides of the room, so the heat is likely to dissipate over distance, and the whole room isn't heated equally. Lastly, the two will likely never be on at the same time, especially while gaming, so their combined heats shouldn't be a problem.

Also, i just remembered there's a fireplace in that room, so the heat never really builds up, it just stays at a constant, so if i leave the door open in the room at night, that should really keep the temperature down.

With all that in mind, do you still think there'd be problems? Either way, i've downloaded the software you linked to, so i'll give that a look when i get home.

Capt'n Midnight

Amaru wrote:

It gets to about 40 degrees in there

dell lattitude - Operating 0 to 35C (32 to 95F)
dell dimension / Apple G5 Operating 10° to 35°C (50° to 95°F)
dell workstation - Temperature Operating +10°C - +40°C

http://support.jp.dell.com/docs/systems/dmum/specs.htm
also you have to take into account the humidity
Relative humidity 20% to 80% (noncondensing)

if you get condensation on the windows they you don't have a noncondensing environment dehumidifiers do work, but they create a little more heat