Could cold be a imac problem

December 8, 2008 11:43 AM

Is it possible the cold in the room is a factor in why my older imac has a difficult time starting up in the morning?
posted by citybuddha to computers & internet (12 comments total)

has a difficult time starting up in the morning?

Describe this.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 11:52 AM on December 8, 2008

We need more detail what you mean by "difficult time starting up". In general, cold is better for a computer than hot, but there are limits. At very low temps, the lubrication in the hard drive, or fans, could theoretically stiffen up. Taking a PC from a cold environ into a warm location could lead to condensation issues.
posted by nomisxid at 11:52 AM on December 8, 2008

In my 30 years of using personal computers I have never come across anything like this. Though it's possible, I'd guess the answer is closer to your own impatience.
posted by rhizome at 12:00 PM on December 8, 2008

Back in the mid-90s I had a system with a SCSI drive that would refuse to spin up until it was warmed up by the rest of the electronics. This was in an old building that got below 60 F over night during the Winter months. It was only the drive that was affected, everything else worked fine.
posted by tommasz at 12:08 PM on December 8, 2008

What happens if you restart it immediately after you shut it down? Does it take the same amount of time?

If yes: Cold is not your problem. The residual heat will be keeping the thing toasty.

If no: Maybe.

How "cold" are we talking here? Below 50f? 40f? The official operational temperature recommendation is 50f-95f, but that's being conservative, and you should be able to stray 10 degrees either side of that with no problems.
posted by Ookseer at 12:23 PM on December 8, 2008

In my 30 years of using personal computers I have never come across anything like this.

citybuddha doesn't provide much detail, but I was immediately reminded of my main PC from about 1995-2000, which would refuse to boot at all, or behave quite sluggishly, when the temperature in my bedroom dropped into the low 50s F.
posted by brennen at 12:32 PM on December 8, 2008

(I never really figured out why; a drive refusing to spin up might well explain things, but I feel like there were other symptoms not really consistent with that.)
posted by brennen at 12:36 PM on December 8, 2008

Yeah, I'm sure there are a lot of corner cases here, but it's not endemic or anything. I guess we'll see if the OP follows up.
posted by rhizome at 1:01 PM on December 8, 2008

I've had similar experiences with older hard-drives/disks in cold environments. They would refuse to work, then - if I'd leave the machine on for 20-30 minutes, a reset and boom the machine would boot.

How cold? How old?
posted by jkaczor at 1:06 PM on December 8, 2008

In general, computers like the cold. As long as the temperature is above freezing, I can't see that being the problem. (And even below freezing, cold isn't a problem as long as the humidity is low enough that there isn't ice.)

When you say "older iMac," do you mean one with a CRT display? Does the power light come on right away? Do you hear the hard drives spin-up in a timely fashion? How long till you hear the happy Mac noise?

If what you mean is that after you press the power button, you see the blue screen or the apple logo for a long time, there could be an issue with hard drive (OS X has to check the filesystem on each startup) or it could be a problem with the network configuration (it's looking for a DHCP server that isn't there, or something). You can enable verbose statup by Command-v immediately after you press the power button.

You might want to post more info here. Open Terminal, and enter the command dmesg. Post the results.
posted by paulg at 1:09 PM on December 8, 2008

I had a Mac which was kept in a coldish room and had a great deal of trouble starting up.

I don't believe it was actually the cold though, I think it was humidity/dampness. Could that be a factor?

It was an old Performa by the way, and could often be persuaded to spin up by a hearty slap to the lower rear of the case.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 2:37 PM on December 8, 2008

Yes, a cold temperature will stop the boot process. I have an IMAC G5 (3rd generation) in my office. The building gets very cold at night. In the morning after I turn on the office heater, I then turn on the mac and it will make the "bong" sound, the glowing start light will switch on, then the computer holds with the light on and the fans kick up to high until the computer has warmed up. After that the IMAC finishes the boot process and runs perfectly. I believe 40 degrees is the temperature for the problem to occur. Yes I have been told this is crazy talk. However, it is true in my experience.
posted by donnywarren at 12:04 PM on January 15