With Computers, Heat is Your Enemy

When it comes to computers, heat is an enemy. I recently visited my youngest son in Ohio and enjoyed an evening of watching him play Spider-Man 2. The way he has his PS5 set up is that it sits in a television stand below his TV. His stand has doors on it and so when he plays, he has to open the doors to make sure the console has enough airflow to remain cool. When he forgets to open the doors, it gets really hot and the PS5's fan sounds like a jet engine. Continuing to run the console could cause damage and render it useless.

When I worked in Research and Development at Sony Interactive Entertainment, the PlayStation 5 early development kits took many precautions to ensure they didn't overheat. I can't go into too many details because of my existing confidentiality agreement but we always worried. about heat. The consumer units have been designed to withstand a lot, but they are not designed to run in an enclosed space without proper cooling.

The PlayStation 5 is similar to high-end home computer systems. Both need to be appropriately cooled. This means ensuring there is good airflow around intake and exhaust vents. Dust needs to be cleaned from fans and airways. Basically you should constantly evaluate your computer setup and make sure nothing has changed that would create an overheating hazard.

Boy It Is Hot Outside

We are having very warm temperatures in Utah right now. When I go to the national weather service it has a message saying, "Excessive Heat Warning." Basically if you go outside, you run the risk of spontaneously bursting into flames. I don't mind too badly as my air conditioner is fairly new and does a great job of keeping the inside of my house comfortable.

One problem with air conditioning is that it can be expensive during really warm weather. I have done what I can to limit how much it runs including painting my house white and using white tiles on my roof. When I had to have my roof replaced, the salesperson said the color of the tiles shouldn't make much of a difference. Interestingly I chose the tiles with the Energy Star rating and my electrical bill is consistently 50% less than it was with my previous tiles. In other words, the salesperson was ignorant and white roof tiles make a huge difference.

To help keep my air conditioning costs down I also set my thermostat to 76 degrees Fahrenheit. That is a great daytime temperature as I can hang out in shorts and a t-shirt inside. My office likes to keep the temperature much colder and people run around in jackets and blankets. It is a good thing I don't have to go in every day.

One more thing you can do to keep electrical costs down in the summer is to leverage free air conditioning with the cool night air. The only downside is you can't rely on an outside source to know when it is okay to open your windows. I have an Amazon Show in my family room that always displays the outside temperature as reported by the national weather service. Unfortunately it is never the same as my actual outside temperature. How do I know? I have an electronic thermometer that displays its reading on my weather station inside. I keep the sensor in the shade on the north side of my house. I don't even think about opening a window until my weather station tells me the outside is at least a half degree cooler than the inside.

There are about 20 days in the summer where the outside temperature never gets low enough for me to open my windows. When I fell asleep last night, my bedroom was about 3 degrees cooler than the outside. It was still 2 degrees cooler this morning when I woke up. I expect a few more days of this but will still watch nightly as I enjoy seeing how cool I can get my house with free air conditioning.

That outdoor thermometer has more than paid for itself. Sometimes I will go outside and think the house is warmer inside. Often that just means there is a slight breeze which makes it feel cooler even though it isn't. Having a trusted temperature source helps me convince others that live with me to keep the windows closed for just a bit longer.

Finally it is important to know that unless you have many zones for your air conditioner, not all rooms in your house are at the same temperature. My house has 3 levels and the basement is always cooler than the other 2. The master bedroom is in the top level and always the warmest being about 3 degrees warmer than the level below it. When it is time to open windows, I start upstairs. I have thermometers on each level of the house and only when the outside temperature drops below the inside temperature for that level do I open those windows.

The system is not foolproof but it works fairly well for dry western states like Utah. I was talking with someone recently that said the difference between high and low humidity is that with low humidity, it does get cool in the shade. For me, that means when the sun goes down, it gets cool. Sometimes very quickly and I appreciate that.

Computers and the Cold

Last night I was watching the news and they mentioned that it is so cold that people are starting to have water pipes freeze in their homes. There's nothing like a news story about water damage to make you get up at 10pm to run around and check all your pipes.

I know it has been cold because my office is in my basement and it doesn't really have insulated walls. Instead I have covered the concrete with posters, flags, and other coverings to give it a warmer feel. I have a heating vent in my office but have decided it doesn't really do much. Normally my office is about 65 degrees. Lately it has been down at 61 and so I know it has been cold. This morning I came in and it was 59.

My office is great in the summer. As I mentioned before, the temperature is normally about 65 degrees and that includes during the summer. When it gets really hot outside, my office might get up to 70 degrees, but usually not much warmer. This morning it was just too cold and so I turned on an electric space heater I keep in my office for such occasions.

Those that have been to older computer installations know that they generally keep computer rooms at about 65 degrees. This is because those old computers really put out the heat and it is necessary to keep the ambient temperature relatively lower than usual or the computers would overheat.

This got me thinking about my days back in college when I was studying electrical engineering. One of the first things we learned was that electrons travel faster at colder temperatures. Following that logic, you would want to keep your computer as cold as possible so it can run faster. Unfortunately that is not the reason to keep those old computers cold. Transistors switch slower at colder temperatures. Seeing as your computer is just a bunch of electrical switches (billions of them, actually), you don't want to make your computer too cold or it starts to slow down.

Nope the real reason to keep those old computers cold is that transistors start to do funny things when they get to hot. Since computers think in terms of binary numbers or ones and zeros, zeros can become ones or visa versa if the computer gets too hot. The same thing happens when the computer gets too cold. That is why all computers come with a temperature operating range.

Realistically the chances of you using your computer outside the suggested temperature range is pretty minimal. For an Apple Mac, this is between 50 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately the same thing cannot be said about the operator. I seem to think a lot better at 70 degrees than I do at 60. Perhaps my operating temperature range is a bit more narrow than my computers'.