Can a PC be too cold to start?

[fredered]

At 0 degrees the electrons just don't move of their own accord. However, you are 'putting energy into the electrons' by creating a voltage difference - electron movement accross voltage is not diffusion controlled.

At 0 degrees [celcius, i assume you mean] the electrons still move, the only thing really special about 0 decrees is that water freezes. There is movement of particles until, theoretically -273 degees C or 0K, this is when there is no longer kintic energy, but when you get to the quantum level i think it gets even more complicated and there are still various types of energy doing stuff.

[Memphis`]

Well if were really getting into physics why don't me just find out how much current is flowing through the circuit and the charge as well. Then we could go on to find the magnetic flux density and the flux linkage between the circuits of the computer.
Or another thing we could do is find the kinetic energy of all the particles in the circuit at that temperature?
Alternating current is a little different to direct current but it shouldn't be too hard to find out. Actually does anyone know wether it is a.c. that flows around the computer circuits or wether theres a converter that changes it to d.c.?

Do you have amount of watts your PSU is? After all watts are just Joules per second, therefore we could figure out how much energy is running around the circuit.

Sorry, got a big physics exam tomorrow so jst trying to make myself a little more confident by acting clever!!

[arthurleung]

What power supply are you using? Some very cheap power supplies use crap capacitors that doesn't function well at low temperature (and high temperarue as well).

You could go and check the voltage in BIOS and see if its lower/higher when cool? Kind of like my Hiper 580W. It power up at 11.91V during the cold and slowly climb up to 12.4 when it is used for a while. Not that 11.91V will cause me any problem, but if yours go too low your HDD may stop functioning due to power loss.

[themaidenmaniac]

It appears that cold = evil.

[kalniel]

At 0 degrees [celcius, i assume you mean] the electrons still move, the only thing really special about 0 decrees is that water freezes. There is movement of particles until, theoretically -273 degees C or 0K, this is when there is no longer kintic energy, but when you get to the quantum level i think it gets even more complicated and there are still various types of energy doing stuff.

I was talking about 0 kelvin, but yes I suppose you could describe movement of electrons as quantum tunnelling in those conditions (hence the 'not diffusion controlled')

[prehensile]

The most demanding thing is probably the hard drive, hard drives Are quoted as above 5° operating temperature.

[aidanjt]

at 0 kelvin most metals become super-conducting, but this is a big problem for certain electrical components such as semi-conductors because electricity can flow so freely it can jump transisters and the semi-conducting state is lost.. this loss of state can happen at higher temperatures, since semi-conductors can change into a plain conductor.

[phunkygal]

left my computer on its own for a week over christmas, was fine when i left when i came back hard drives have died. think it snowed here so must have been pretty cold.

[kalniel]

Don't forget condensation will hit hard drives as well - imagine all that water condensing in the cold on your platters...

[behappier]

Sorry to dig up an old thread but did the OP get it sorted. I now have the same problem, on first boot from cold the computer freezes at the windows progress bar. On reboot, it is always fine. I suspect my tagan 480w psu.
System is p5be-plus, e4300, Raid0 2x250gb and 4gb Ram running vista x64.

Ta.

[pildorex]

the problem is not related with cold temps. is a Intel P965 errata. the asus p5b c1 has a cold boot problem. other P965 mobos have this problem 2


use cpuz and check your mobo version, c2 is free of this problem, c1 is fked.


luckily i knew this before buying my p5b-e c2

pd, sorry 4 the English, not my native language

[peterb]

The only reasons I can think of for the PC not starting when it is cold are either that the hard drive is sluggish - possibly because any grease in thje bearings is thicker, and therefore read times are reduced and something times out - but it is a bit tenuous, or that there is a dicky connection somewhere and in the cold the contacts contract very slightly and give an error. Likely contenders are memory or PCI connectors. It might be worth removing and reseating the memory sticks and PCI cards and see if that makes a difference.

Electrical resistance does vary with temperature, but not significantly at the temperatures we are talking about. However at very low temperatures (it varies for different metals - and semiconductore) of around 10 degrees Kelvin (where absolute zero is 0K) resistance drops to zero, so a current flowing in a wire will flow indefinitely. This is superconductivity. For more information, google is your friend.

[behappier]

Well, thanks for the info. I have established it was not my PSU as I have replaced it by a brand new corsair 620W to find out it did the same thing!! A Tagan 480 U1 for sale soon in the classifieds.

I have attempted to reflash to BIOS to the new one issued early July and after erasing the Bios it refused to flash the new one. I thought I'd reboot and that there must be some sort of back up. How wrong I was, no post, nothing... Mobo is being RMA'd... In the meantime, I ordered a new Abit IP-35 that I should get tomorrow. We shall see!

[Agent]

You guys that are talking about the –273 thing are referring to Absolute Zero