With Your Consumer Electronics and Computers, Avoid Extremes of Temperature

You may not realize this, but consumer electronics, especially expensive and highly sophisticated ones like a personal computer, are extremely susceptible to extremes of temperature. Too hot or too cold are both bad, but even worse is equipment that goes from one extreme to another in a relatively short period of time.

Take the case of a new PC you happen to buy at a bricks-and-mortar store on a cold winter's day. Since you have other shopping to do, the computer and its monitor may sit in the back of your vehicle or in the trunk for hours. This alone is not too much of an issue, although you probably want to avoid letting the hardware get jostled about too much. Extreme cold, for example, can make certain items a bit more brittle and susceptible to breakage.

No, the danger comes when you get the computer home and decide to immediately set it up. The equipment is about to go from a temperature of anywhere between 0 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit to a maximum of 100-120 degrees in a relatively short period of time. This is where your newly purchased hardware is apt to sustain damage. As the delicate electronics begin to warm, condensation may form within, which can cause components to short out. The same is true for a stereo, for a television, and virtually anything else of this type. Fire is possible but more likely, the equipment will just stop operating. You may see a wisp of smoke as the only indication, besides failure, that a problem has occurred.

You can see the same thing happen if you have a TV or a computer - desktop or handheld - located in a very cold room when you turn it on. You may lose the entire system although, in some instances, just one or two components within will take the brunt of the damage. If you're lucky, you may be able to replace the problem parts for less than the cost of a new unit.

Extreme heat causes different but sometimes equally severe issues. Such problems usually give you signs ahead of actual damage being done. For example, with computers, you may see the system begin to report various errors such as a drive not being found, or you are unable to write to a disk or open a file. When you go to type, you may discover that instead of the keys you press, garbage characters appear on the screen.

Many newer computers come equipped with thermal sensors that can detect when the system is nearing peak normal operational temperature. If configured to do so, the computer will automatically shut itself down to prevent damage or sound an audible alarm - one you also may see in the form of an on-screen alert - to get you to shut down the PC before components on the motherboard begin to literally fry. Most other types of consumer electronics, however, do not come with these temperature monitors. Also, the damage done by these temperature extremes may not be immediate. Instead, the hardware will simply fail far ahead of its normal life span even though it may be months or even a year or two from the time it experienced the temperature emergency.

To prevent this kind of hardware stress, there are some common sense steps you can take. These include:

- always wait for a period of time, usually several hours, for a piece of equipment that has been exposed to cold to gradually warm to room temperature; keep the hardware unplugged during this time
- avoid operating equipment anywhere that the temperature is either very high or very low
- if you experience hardware symptoms that lead you to believe the system is running too hot, turn the system off as soon as possible; let it cool completely before you turn it on again
- during periods of high heat, if you do not have air conditioning or some other form of cooling available in the area where you operate the device, limit the amount of time you keep the equipment running and be sure that nothing blocks the vents you frequently find on PC cases, TV consoles and monitors, and on some stereo setups
- also related to heat, avoid having equipment stacked one on top of another; the more "breathing room" you can keep around different components, the better the heat can dissipate into the room rather than being retained within or near the hardware itself

If you run into a problem because of a temperature extreme, understand that any warranty that covers the equipment may be effectively voided. The wording on most electronics' warranties specifies that you must operate it under reasonable conditions. Check with your manufacturer; some are more lenient than others, willing to repair or repair components even if you perhaps should have known better than to operate the device under the less than ideal conditions.