computers and cold temperatures[OT]

[Karl Auer]

> > IS it a bad thing to have a computer operating, say, in a garage
> > during the cold winters?

Andrew Tridgell, of Samba fame, was part of a project to put some Linux
boxes in the Antarctic:

   http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2843

The British Antarctic Survey has also used Linux boxes (and others) in
very cold places:

   http://tuxdeluxe.org/node/34

There are no details in the articles about cold, though it seems the
machines were probably in fairly protected environments (powered, for a
start!).

I don't believe there were any particular problems with temperature.
Cold is not an issue as long as the machine is running, but *water*
might be a problem - if you have ice or snow that gets melted by the
heat from the machine, or condensation from warm air striking cold
surfaces.

> > Also wondering if anyone has any practical experience with storing
> CDs/DVDs under cold conditions.

No practical experience, but intuition suggests they'll last longer.
This is certainly the case with magnetic tape, film and so on. Still
need to keep them stored vertical, out of the light, dry, away from
pests, etc.

I suspect that using them would be more pf a problem than storing them.
As with any storage medium, I imagine they need to be at machine ambient
temperature before use. Stick a freezing CD into a hot CD drive and you
would get thermal expansion of the CD to some degree and contraction of
any drive parts in direct contact with the CD. Depending on the airflow,
you might also get air moving across the freezing CD hitting hot parts
of the computer causing thermal contraction.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer/                   +61-428-957160 (mob)

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