Jane Namenye Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 I need to convince someone to improve the air conditioning in the office. We have several dual quad-cores and a couple dozen other workstations and pcs in the same room, plus we are having a February heat wave. The people are complaining, but I'm more concerned about the computers. I found posts here and in other forums with technical data on computer cooling and horror stories about meltdowns. What I really need is some simple, non-technical info on the effects of heat on computers. What is the proper room temperature? Is there gradual decrease in performance or permanent damage done by having the computer run in a room that's too hot? Data like that would be a big help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbowers Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Jane, I found this by typing "Server Room Temperature Data" into Google. http://www.openxtra.co.uk/articles/recommended-server-room-temperature.php I would add that we have a dedicated Heat Pump in our building that serves only the server room and keeps it at a constant 60 degrees year round. I can also tell you that both of our IT directors get very nervous on hot days. I haven't witnessed a melt-down but can tell when the server is getting a little too hot. HTH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane Namenye Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 Thanks! That's a good start. The article said maximum 82 degrees F/ 28C. I brought a little digital alarm clock with thermometer and stuck it on top of my computer this morning. Right now it says 93F (34C)! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 93 is definitely too high. Remember that these systems are using hundreds of watts of electricity each. Entropy increases. "Using hundreds of watts of electricity each" can be rephrased as "each one is a space heater generating hundreds of watts of heat". At 93F you're in danger of equipent failing. The first sign will be computers turning off without warning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane Namenye Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 The first sign will be computers turning off without warning. Thanks a lot. So if the first sign is computers turning off, then anyone who says "It seems to be running slow - maybe it's the heat" has something else going on? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 It's not inconceivable that your motherboards drop the CPU speed when they start overheating... maybe Adam from Boxx could say?... you could check this by running CPU-Z on a computer that seems to be running slow while under full load (run a render). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOXXLABS Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Although that is hotter than recommended, most modern intel and AMD cpu's can run just fine at temperatures up to 34 degrees C. However, if they get much hotter (37-40C +) , built-in protection circutry will "kick in" which will start "throttling" the cpu's clock - essentailly slowing down the cpu until the temp. gets back within the operational thermal threshold. The other drawback to running ANY electronic device in a warmer than reccomended enviruonment is that it WILL shorten the lifespan of that device. This said, CPUs are very robest and are designed to run for many many years. Even if your CPU's life expecancy is cut by HALF by being run in a warmer than normal environment, you should still expect your CPU and other system components to run reliably at full speed for years. HWmonitor (http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php) is a free utility that can read the TC (thermocouple) instrumentation inside the CPU itself and will tell you the internal temperature. As long as the computers in that room are running normally and not crashing or running slowly, I wouldn't worry too much about having your company spend a bunch of money to make it 5 degrees (or whatever) cooler in there. My $.02 Adam BOXXlabs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihabkal Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 (edited) HaHahaaaa Last week I spent 5 days fighting with my pc over this problem. My $3500 (at that time) Quad core 2.66 Extreme edition was only showing 1.5 GHZ and was 25% slower than my Quad core 2.4 GHZ in the same room. I spent five days tweaking the bios and updating drivers. It turned out to be overheating, and it was protecting itself by lowering speed and voltage to the cpu, neat! So I went to the Gaz station nearby, blew off all the dust with their air pump (can't afford compressed air cans since i moved to Beirut) and tried it and now it is running at 2.66GHZ all the time I am rendeirng and only slowing down when idle. Thank God, I thought my cpu was defective, turned out all the dust form Beirut polluted city was assembling on the walls of the cooling unit. So cooler = about 35% faster. Edited February 4, 2009 by ihabkal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 If you want a non-technical reason for your boss/ purchasing dept to install an air-con, try this... Compare total cost of replacing your servers and recovering data from overheated HDD's after meltdown vs. total cost of air-con ducting/ unit. That might get them interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane Namenye Posted February 5, 2009 Author Share Posted February 5, 2009 Thanks for all the info. I see it's not a total emergency at this point, but I am now educated enough to communicate why something should be done about it. PS I liked the HWmonitor - it's very fast and easy to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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