(I also learned that the Surface Book has a dedicated “I have shut down because I overheated and must cool down before I will start up again” screen (an illustration of a thermometer), which I wouldn’t expect most computers to have, though I think I’ve only caused thermal shutdown one other time; during Hyderabad summer, recording in the late afternoon in an upper room, the ambient temperature got as high as 45°C, and there wasn’t enough thermal headroom for throttling to save it, so it needed extra makeshift external heatsinks. I quoted 25–35°C in the first paragraph because I was doing the actual editing overnight when it was somewhat cooler.)
Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
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Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#52This reminds me of a time I tried to install Ubuntu on an old thick Dell laptop many years ago. Each time I would try the system would overheat and then crash. The existing (windows) system still appeared to work fine with light loads so I was pretty sure I just needed to get past the install and decided to try one more time. It was winter at the time, I can't remember if it had snowed recently, but I think it was pr…
Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#53Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#54I've done this once. I got a laptop from a new company that was really shitty, but I had hopes that running Gentoo with some nasty CFLAGS would make it usable. However, the thing would heat a lot when compiling the base system and would crash in the middle of the installation. Fair enough! I put it in the fridge and ran the installation from there. It concluded without issues and the laptop was MUCH faster than with…
What's a 'normal' Linux distro for comparison? Do you mean one that ships binaries, or perhaps one that also enables a GUI by default?
Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#55I have done this. Many years ago I was forced to work with a terrible laptop. It was one of those Dell 5cm thick things that were basically cramming a desktop cpu and gpu into someting that looked like someone had bolted a second box undeneeth a standard laptop. Fans ofc screeming loudly all day. So I had the brilliant idea to just run everyting of an external drive so that when I could work from home, I could seamle…
This hurts just reading it. How'd it go in the end?
Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#56Never seen this done to a whole laptop, but it wasn't an uncommon last ditch method for pulling files off a dying HDD back in the days of spinning platters. Preferably in a zip lock vacuum bag and left over night. This is a 17 year old article, but I'm a little skeptical that 10 minutes in the fridge whilst still in the laptop would have made much difference. Probably the forced reboot did just as much. On the other…
When I was ~11ish I found my desktop was overheating quite regularly. The solution I came up with on my $0 dollar budget was to pop the side of the case off and point a box fan into it. Worked like a charm…for a while.
Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#57I've done this once. I got a laptop from a new company that was really shitty, but I had hopes that running Gentoo with some nasty CFLAGS would make it usable. However, the thing would heat a lot when compiling the base system and would crash in the middle of the installation. Fair enough! I put it in the fridge and ran the installation from there. It concluded without issues and the laptop was MUCH faster than with…
Did condensation not pose a problem? Not just immediate shorts, but perhaps corrosion and the laptop dying earlier than expected.
So you need to worry about condensation, when you take the equipment out of the fridge at the end.
(Where I live now, our dew point is typically at 24C throughout the day. So anything at or below that temperature collects water. That's about 75F.)
Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#58Never seen this done to a whole laptop, but it wasn't an uncommon last ditch method for pulling files off a dying HDD back in the days of spinning platters. Preferably in a zip lock vacuum bag and left over night. This is a 17 year old article, but I'm a little skeptical that 10 minutes in the fridge whilst still in the laptop would have made much difference. Probably the forced reboot did just as much. On the other…
Reminds me of a time that a friend of a friend had me attempt to reflow an old laptop with a $20 heat gun. HP DV6000 or a 9000, if anybody remembers those failure rates. He had two. I'd worked in a warranty depot and had some experience with the tear down by then. The reflow didn't work for us, but we did manage to make one of the two functional again.
Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#59Re: Adam? ... is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge? (2006)
#60It actually worked after but it was pure luck I think.
Another time I did it with a graphics card that had been overclocked and definitely was having some board issues, took it apart and did the same, it seemed to reseat the solder and it was working fine for a few months after but obviously none of these are long term solutions, but it’s interesting the major impact temperatures will have on your hardware!