Loft seems to kill PCs ...

[Jethro]

my home media sep revolves around a PC I have stashed in the loft. It's got a 1Tb USB drive with music and video on it. It's available

24/7, so can be set to download things, and we don't have to put up with the racket of a PC next to the TV. Eventually, I'd like it to act as an telephone recorder, and maybe a CCTV recorder ....

However, I am now on my 3rd PC ... despite me comprehensively soak testing them, before putting them up in the loft, it seems after 2-3 months, they become somehow unreliable, and just lock up. I have a remote-control power switch, which I flip, they restart and can run for quite a while (1 week+) before locking up again.

My last one went up with a UPS ... (which was actually needed as we had a few brief power outages over 12 hours) so it should have a fairly clean power feed. I have based the systems around Ubuntu, and used different versions (started with 8.10 and am now on 10.04). Each machine has been different, built up from whatever I had around.

When finally change the machine, the "faulty" one gets re soak tested, but seems to fly ... I run various stress tests (using the "stress" utility) which have killed many iffy machines.

So I'm left with the suggestion there is something environmental about putting the PC in the loft. It's chilly up there, so it's unlikely to be *over*heating. Even in the height of summer, the CPU temperature was running at about 70C. Loft is dry. The router next to the PC has stayed up for months now ...

Anyone any ideas ?

[Peter Scott]

If they run OK when you bring them into the warm, probably cold hard disks. Solid state disks wouldn't do that I think, but I expect you need very large ones. How about a small SSD for boot and a SATA cable to a hard disk in a warmer place?

Peter Scott

[John Williamson]

The USB drive?

I've noticed on a couple of systems here that if a drive connected to a USB adaptor for testing/ recovery is slow responding to the PC, the PC can lock up while it's waiting. Then again, I use XP. Of course if it's

*not* the same external drive each time, I've no ideas.

[Onetap]

Loose insulation fibres, getting into cooling fans & electronics?

I used to deal with a couple of chilled water fan-coil units, installed in a loft. The motors and bearings had a short life, eventually found to be due to holes in the casings, cut for pipes. The fibres from the insulation roll material was getting in through the holes, by-passing the filters.

[Jethro]

Well, for the first 6 months, they had no USB drive ... I foolishly relied on two internal drives. However after my 2nd failure, I realised the folly ... the beauty of the USB solution is that it's relatively easy to switch machines.

However, I did have a fault whereby the media player I use (a wireless cyclone box, which connects into the wifi) would not be able to play sometimes, and I had to reboot the box. I suspect this was down to a

*very* obscure bug in the Linux kernel, which meant it was unable to wake up disks that had been put into power saving mode. The fault did seem to occur if the USB disk hadn't been accessed for a while. However moving from 9.10 to 10.04 seems to have fixed that, as I haven't had it since.

[Jethro]

The insides of the boxes look clean, and they seem to work OK when downstairs again ...

[Jethro]

interesting ... I had no idea there was a temperature limit for HDDs ... I shall look up the specs now ...

[Dave Liquorice]

I'd vote for a USB quirk. It's not the most reliable of systems. I've had PC's fail to recognise devices when plugged in, even when they did 5 mins before. Normally have to reboot to recover that is under doze though...

[Dave Liquorice]

A proper NAS device for the media files would be just the same as a USB drive(*) with regards to ease of server replacement.

(*) I'm assuming by "USB drive" you do mean a USB connected spining disc type drive not a USB pen drive or other solidstate thingy.

[Donwill]

Lofts inevitably follow external temperatures, rapid temperature changes will induce condensation which might be the source of your problems. Don

[The Natural Philosopher]

i wouldnt use power save on the disks

let em run and keep warm

Might be worth builidining an insulated cupboard with controlled ventilation.

[Tabby]

Ubuntu may be the problem, its not the most stable distro about, and is very fat for a server. Other possibles are cold & condensation. Less likely, if its an old pc I also remember ubuntu having issues with some aftermarket hdd access cards, but I dont remember whether they were usb, pata or sata.

If you spend a little attention & work on a pc its not too hard to make it silent, then no need to hide it in the loft.

If its old P2 era pcs that have sat idle for a few years, there's also the possibility that they're simply not reliable hardware-wise

NT

[Dave Liquorice]

You only get condensation on surfaces that are below the dew point of the surrounding air. Rapid temperature changes only contribute to condensation if "stuff" is cold and the air warms rapidly and has a source of moisture. The "stuff" doesn't warm up as fast as the air and ends up below the dew point.

An operating PC is not likely to get anywhere near cold enough unless the loft is *very* damp and very hot.

[Terry Fields]

I once worked in a large office that had air-con installed due to complaints about the summer heat - one chap passed out it was so hot.

Once up and running, one bright spark decided to play a prank, by being the last one to leave on Friday afternoon and setting the aircon to minimum, about 16 degC.

When we all turned up on Monday morning, none of the computers would boot up and the disks made funny noises. We turned the aircon up and allowed the computers to warm up, and all came back to life.

Lofts are places where temperature cycling takes place that's way beyond normal living-room or office swings, perhaps it's this that's doing your computers in.

TF

[Donwill]

Yes, correct.

Correct there also. :-)

A moot point. As I said above "might be"

Cheers Don

[Huge]

IMO, there's no "perhaps" about it. I'd never put a PC in a loft.

[Ronald Raygun]

What's a sep?

The OP said he has soak tested them, so if they can cope with total immersion, I don't see how a bit of condensation would do any harm.

:-)

[Mark]

It's not too difficult to make a PC quieter by using better fans, superior case etc. There are many web sites dedicated to making your PC quieter. My PC is almost silent and I've not done that much to it.

[Dr Hfuhruhurr]

Temperature extremes. that'll kill it. not much kit will be able to cope with that and any possible condensation that comes with it. Not a good place at all.

[Alan Braggins]

If he can afford a solid state 1 Tb drive, he can afford a consultant to come and find his problem :-)