Putting in computer in a garage/outhouse

Hi

Our second baby has just been born and he will soon be moving into the spare
bedroom. So I moved the home office into a corner of the living/dining
room... but that's not working because there's too many distractions. I'm
considering partitioning the rear end of my external garage off and putting
the computer in there but I am concerned that the cold/damp will affect it.
When I'm in the garage I will have the heater on but when I'm not there
won't be any heat in there. I live in the UK so it can get pretty cold in
the winter. What do you think?

I suppose I could always put the baby in the garage )

Thanks for any opinions.

Sonars_UK

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 13:44:15 +0100, "Sonars_UK"
wrote:

Hi

Our second baby has just been born and he will soon be moving into the spare
bedroom. So I moved the home office into a corner of the living/dining
room... but that's not working because there's too many distractions. I'm
considering partitioning the rear end of my external garage off and putting
the computer in there but I am concerned that the cold/damp will affect it.
When I'm in the garage I will have the heater on but when I'm not there
won't be any heat in there. I live in the UK so it can get pretty cold in
the winter. What do you think?

I suppose I could always put the baby in the garage )

Thanks for any opinions.

Sonars_UK


Create a "heater" out of a light bulb or a few power resistors
and put it in the system case. You might have to experiment a
bit to see how much heat, or rather how much the leakage, effects
the sustained temp in winter but it shouldn't need be very
powerful, perhaps a couple dozen watts though that's only a
random guess, you need not have it room temp but at least it
should be above the dew point. You could rig up a relay such
that the normally closed contacts opened when system turned on,
so then heat was off, and vice-versa. Preferribly it'd be in the
bottom of the case, since heated air travels up.

In article 45fDc.311$Uo3.198@newsfe6-
gui.server.ntli.net, "Sonars_UK" sonars_uk@(remove)
hotmail.com says...
Hi

Our second baby has just been born and he will soon be moving into the spare
bedroom. So I moved the home office into a corner of the living/dining
room... but that's not working because there's too many distractions. I'm
considering partitioning the rear end of my external garage off and putting
the computer in there but I am concerned that the cold/damp will affect it.
When I'm in the garage I will have the heater on but when I'm not there
won't be any heat in there. I live in the UK so it can get pretty cold in
the winter. What do you think?


Reasonable cold probably won't matter (e.g. not cold
enough to freeze water), condensation would be a bad
thing though. Large temperature swings might cause
cables/chips to loosen. Lots and lots of insulation in
the walls/ceiling would also help stabilize the
temperature.

One solution (depending on the size of the space, and
the amount of insulation) would be a pair of 75W
incadescent bulbs that you leave turned on in the room.
That might be enough to keep the temperature at normal
levels.

Toshi1873 wrote:
"Sonars_UK" sonars_uk@(remove) hotmail.com says...

Our second baby has just been born and he will soon be moving
into the spare bedroom. So I moved the home office into a
corner of the living/dining room... but that's not working
because there's too many distractions. I'm considering
partitioning the rear end of my external garage off and putting
the computer in there but I am concerned that the cold/damp
will affect it. When I'm in the garage I will have the heater
on but when I'm not there won't be any heat in there. I live
in the UK so it can get pretty cold in the winter. What do you
think?

Reasonable cold probably won't matter (e.g. not cold
enough to freeze water), condensation would be a bad
thing though. Large temperature swings might cause
cables/chips to loosen. Lots and lots of insulation in
the walls/ceiling would also help stabilize the
temperature.

One solution (depending on the size of the space, and
the amount of insulation) would be a pair of 75W
incadescent bulbs that you leave turned on in the room.
That might be enough to keep the temperature at normal
levels.

Based on the effect of a single 100 Watt bulb left in the engine
room of a car at -20 F or so, I think the problem will be to avoid
overheating with a bulb in the box. It might be simpler to just
leave the beastie on, and defeat any automatic power downs.

--
Chuck F ) )
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
http://cbfalconer.home.att.net USE worldnet address!

remove wrote:

Hi

Our second baby has just been born and he will soon be moving into the
spare
bedroom. So I moved the home office into a corner of the living/dining
room... but that's not working because there's too many distractions. I'm
considering partitioning the rear end of my external garage off and
putting the computer in there but I am concerned that the cold/damp will
affect it.

Leave it running 24/7 and it should be fine.

--

Stacey

don't forget that your printer paper might get damp in a cold garage.

"Sonars_UK" wrote in message
...
Hi

Our second baby has just been born and he will soon be moving into the
spare
bedroom. So I moved the home office into a corner of the living/dining
room... but that's not working because there's too many distractions. I'm
considering partitioning the rear end of my external garage off and
putting
the computer in there but I am concerned that the cold/damp will affect
it.
When I'm in the garage I will have the heater on but when I'm not there
won't be any heat in there. I live in the UK so it can get pretty cold in
the winter. What do you think?

I suppose I could always put the baby in the garage )

Thanks for any opinions.

Sonars_UK

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 14:06:07 GMT, kony wrote:

Create a "heater" out of a light bulb or a few power resistors
and put it in the system case. You might have to experiment a
bit to see how much heat, or rather how much the leakage, effects
the sustained temp in winter but it shouldn't need be very
powerful, perhaps a couple dozen watts though that's only a
random guess, you need not have it room temp but at least it
should be above the dew point. You could rig up a relay such
that the normally closed contacts opened when system turned on,
so then heat was off, and vice-versa. Preferribly it'd be in the
bottom of the case, since heated air travels up.

I seem to have overlooked the monitor, it too needs to be kept
above the dew-point. Many other products are cool running,
practically sealed and wouldn't be as suceptible to problems but
even so the easier solution might be a light bulb heating the
whole area or a heater that can be set very low.

Sonars_UK wrote:

Hi

Our second baby has just been born and he will soon be moving into the spare
bedroom. So I moved the home office into a corner of the living/dining
room... but that's not working because there's too many distractions. I'm
considering partitioning the rear end of my external garage off and putting
the computer in there but I am concerned that the cold/damp will affect it.
When I'm in the garage I will have the heater on but when I'm not there
won't be any heat in there. I live in the UK so it can get pretty cold in
the winter. What do you think?

I suppose I could always put the baby in the garage )

Thanks for any opinions.

Leave the PC on 24/7 and it will be fine. Cold isn't a problem, it's an
advantage, only moisture is a problem and if the PC is always warm then
that won't be a problem either.

kony wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 14:06:07 GMT, kony wrote:

Create a "heater" out of a light bulb or a few power resistors
and put it in the system case. You might have to experiment a
bit to see how much heat, or rather how much the leakage, effects
the sustained temp in winter but it shouldn't need be very
powerful, perhaps a couple dozen watts though that's only a
random guess, you need not have it room temp but at least it
should be above the dew point. You could rig up a relay such
that the normally closed contacts opened when system turned on,
so then heat was off, and vice-versa. Preferribly it'd be in the
bottom of the case, since heated air travels up.

I seem to have overlooked the monitor, it too needs to be kept
above the dew-point. Many other products are cool running,
practically sealed and wouldn't be as suceptible to problems but
even so the easier solution might be a light bulb heating the
whole area or a heater that can be set very low.

I wondered about the monitor too but thought that maybe it would produce
enough heat in stand-by mode?
--
~misfit~

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 15:39:17 +1200, "~misfit~"
wrote:


I wondered about the monitor too but thought that maybe it would produce
enough heat in stand-by mode?

It might but I hesitate to assume it. Just doesn't seem like a
good idea to leave a monitor in freezing temps and expect it to
maintain proper temp on it's own... they aren't meant to be used
in such temps and parts like the capacitors may not meet needed
spec at much below room temp, especially as the monitor gets
older.

One garage could vary quite a bit from the next, we have no idea
how well sealed it is, how insulated, how damp, etc. If anything
metal in the garage seems to be corroding faster than things in
the house, it'll happen to parts of the PC too. It could run all
the time but this pulls a lot more dust though it and might not
be sufficient in sleep mode, in the dead of winter. If system
was prevented from being in sleep mode then the components are
wearing to produce heat when a simple inexpensive heater could be
used instead. Maybe OP can find one of those tiny space-heaters
that has a thermostat adjustable down to a very low temp, which
is at least a finer level of control over the temp.