Froze my laptop :-(

[Number1]

I got home from work last night and I forgot my laptop in the car, this on the coldest night of the year. It went down to -25 C, or -13 F.
I opened my eyes this morning in horror as I realized what I had done. FUCK!

I got up in a panic, put my winter coat on and brought the thing back in the house. I partially opened the case and let the poor thing warm up for 7 hours. Useless to say, I was kind of in a bad mood all morning while waiting for this thing to warm up.

When I turned it back on it booted right up as if nothing had happened. THANK GOD!

Has anybody ever damaged a laptop this way or are they designed to handle these extremes of temperature.

 

[BeauJangles]

Unless water got into the components, I don't see anything inside a laptop that really gets affected by the cold. My biggest concern in your case would be the LCD, not the rest of the internals.

 

[techs]

The only danger I see is if you used it before the hard drive warmed up since thier bearings aren't lubricated for that type of cold.
I found that out in my shop once when the heat went out all weekend and I booted up my computer when it was like 25 degrees F. and the hard drive crashed.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: techs
The only danger I see is if you used it before the hard drive warmed up since thier bearings aren't lubricated for that type of cold.
I found that out in my shop once when the heat went out all weekend and I booted up my computer when it was like 25 degrees F. and the hard drive crashed.

When hard drives fail, one of the methods to try and recover some data is to put the HDD in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer until it's frozen solid. Quickly take it out and plug it in and you might be able get enough runtime out of it to copy some data off. I've used it several times to get data off and it works 🙂

 

[Arcadio]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: techs
The only danger I see is if you used it before the hard drive warmed up since thier bearings aren't lubricated for that type of cold.
I found that out in my shop once when the heat went out all weekend and I booted up my computer when it was like 25 degrees F. and the hard drive crashed.

When hard drives fail, one of the methods to try and recover some data is to put the HDD in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer until it's frozen solid. Quickly take it out and plug it in and you might be able get enough runtime out of it to copy some data off. I've used it several times to get data off and it works 🙂

Wow. Reps if true.

 

[Aimster]

cold doesnt ruin a laptop.

 

[Lonyo]

I've left mine out in my car when it's not much below 0c and the screen often won't play nicely afterwards, but once it's warmed up it's fine.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: techs
The only danger I see is if you used it before the hard drive warmed up since thier bearings aren't lubricated for that type of cold.
I found that out in my shop once when the heat went out all weekend and I booted up my computer when it was like 25 degrees F. and the hard drive crashed.

When hard drives fail, one of the methods to try and recover some data is to put the HDD in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer until it's frozen solid. Quickly take it out and plug it in and you might be able get enough runtime out of it to copy some data off. I've used it several times to get data off and it works 🙂

Wow. Reps if true.

I ran a PC shop for a few years. This is legit, but far from a guarantee. My success rate with candidate drives seemed to be about 50/50.

 

[Q]

The colder a computer is the better actually

 

[Number1]

I was kind of concerned about condensation getting the circuits wet inside.

 

[vshah]

the battery would get drained, that's about it

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: techs
The only danger I see is if you used it before the hard drive warmed up since thier bearings aren't lubricated for that type of cold.
I found that out in my shop once when the heat went out all weekend and I booted up my computer when it was like 25 degrees F. and the hard drive crashed.

When hard drives fail, one of the methods to try and recover some data is to put the HDD in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer until it's frozen solid. Quickly take it out and plug it in and you might be able get enough runtime out of it to copy some data off. I've used it several times to get data off and it works 🙂

Yes, that's true, but the wear on the bearings is excessive and while you can sometimes get a read off a bad drive by freezing it, it drastically shortens the life.
I remember readinga technical paper on this by IBM some years ago when they were still in the hard drive business.

 

[Ika]

My old MP3 player (a Creative Zen Sleek) wouldn't start if it was colder than freezing or hotter than like 120F. Actually, it would start up, then say "Too hot/too cold, shutting down". The LCD also would be very very slow in the cold.

 

[arrfep]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: techs
The only danger I see is if you used it before the hard drive warmed up since thier bearings aren't lubricated for that type of cold.
I found that out in my shop once when the heat went out all weekend and I booted up my computer when it was like 25 degrees F. and the hard drive crashed.

When hard drives fail, one of the methods to try and recover some data is to put the HDD in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer until it's frozen solid. Quickly take it out and plug it in and you might be able get enough runtime out of it to copy some data off. I've used it several times to get data off and it works 🙂

Wow. Reps if true.

I ran a PC shop for a few years. This is legit, but far from a guarantee. My success rate with candidate drives seemed to be about 50/50.

I love weird DIY fixes. What's the science behind this?

 

[Lucky777]

Extreme overclocking idea?😀

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: arrfep

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: techs
The only danger I see is if you used it before the hard drive warmed up since thier bearings aren't lubricated for that type of cold.
I found that out in my shop once when the heat went out all weekend and I booted up my computer when it was like 25 degrees F. and the hard drive crashed.

When hard drives fail, one of the methods to try and recover some data is to put the HDD in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer until it's frozen solid. Quickly take it out and plug it in and you might be able get enough runtime out of it to copy some data off. I've used it several times to get data off and it works 🙂

Wow. Reps if true.

I ran a PC shop for a few years. This is legit, but far from a guarantee. My success rate with candidate drives seemed to be about 50/50.

I love weird DIY fixes. What's the science behind this?

As near as I can tell, it's fractional reduction of resistance/friction, which is caused by the very slight contraction that occurs with freezing metal.

Some info here :

http://tips.vlaurie.com/2008/0...ozen-hard-drive-trick/

 

[akshatp]

Why does your title have a " 🙁 " in it if the end result was positive?

 

[dartworth]

LOL...freeze your laptop...

/facepalm

 

[marvdmartian]

Dang, just think of the overclocking you might have accomplished at that temperature!! :shocked:

 

[soydios]

add 1 for the freezing the hard drive trick. roommate's girlfriend's laptop wouldn't even start booting, so I froze the hard drive overnight. popped it in the laptop, and it almost finished booting into Windows.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: Arcadio

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: techs
The only danger I see is if you used it before the hard drive warmed up since thier bearings aren't lubricated for that type of cold.
I found that out in my shop once when the heat went out all weekend and I booted up my computer when it was like 25 degrees F. and the hard drive crashed.

When hard drives fail, one of the methods to try and recover some data is to put the HDD in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer until it's frozen solid. Quickly take it out and plug it in and you might be able get enough runtime out of it to copy some data off. I've used it several times to get data off and it works 🙂

Wow. Reps if true.

I've done this and saved school data off a drive that way. It would work for about ten minutes before it warmed back up, and died again, but it saved my documents. It was a laptop drive too. Head crashed into the platter and the freezer trick made things shrink enough to just clear again.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Letting it warm up naturally is probably the best thing to do. Just to be safe I'd do backups more often from now on though as that drive's life span has possibly reduced.

I also heard the HDD freezer trick before but never tried it. (never had to 😉)

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: BeauJangles
Unless water got into the components, I don't see anything inside a laptop that really gets affected by the cold. My biggest concern in your case would be the LCD, not the rest of the internals.

Extreme cold may cause metal to contract, placing stress on solder joints and such. It would probably require it to be really cold for that to happen but the stress of heating it up quickly after being cold by running the computer may also be less than desirable.