I live in Southern CA, I left the comptuer in the car...

[optimistic]

Here in Los Angeles....its been 104F for 2 weeks straight. Last week I left my comp in the car during one of those hot summer days (the whole day!).

The OS installed fine, and the computer worked perfectly fine for 2 hrs at home, plus 2 hours at the office. But on the 3rd day, my co-worker told me she smelled something burning. So I took the computer home.

Processor looks fine. Bottom of retail heatsink looks fine.

Here are the specs.

Thunderbird 1.0GHz
256MB Ram
MSI KM133a matx board
YY A101 Case
200w SFX PSU
Retail HSF w/ retail thermal paste (protective plastic removed)
Onboard video.
40GB 5400rpm hdd.

Office is Air conditioned
Car was 160+? Farenheit. Temp outside was 104F. Car was in direct sunlight from 10AM-5PM.

Do you think the comptuer can survive those temperatures? The comptuer was off of course.

 

[jsnowden66]

Hi,

I did the exact same thing with my computer last summer when I moved out of my dorm and was too lazy to finish moving all my stuff into my new apartment. I was so worried after realizing that my computer was left in that intense heat for the whole day!! When I get my computer out of the van during the evening, the computer case still felt warm when I touched it, I bet you know what I'm refering to with this LA summer temp. Luckily for me everything worked fine when I plugged everything together and booted it up. Ever since then the computer has been working fine, although I added a few more case fans and a larger CPU cooler after the incident and being more conscious about CPU temps. I have an T-bird 1.4GHZ, I think its the hottest AMD CPU that ever exists, it runs at 62 degrees during heavy gaming in the LA summer. I would say a computer would survive the heat, but maybe it's just that I'm lucky. I hope you figure out whats wrong with your computer soon, just wanna share my experience.

 

[pspada]

did you smell something burning? If so, was it coming from the power supply? If indeed something did burn out, I doubt it is because it sat in the hot car.

 

[lchyi]

Hehe yea, it shouldn't be bad, considering Pentium 4 procs can go to 90C before shutting down, car heat will be cake for it.

 

[spoondigity]

I agree. I don't think having it in the car was a problem. I did that kind of thing all the time through college with my systems. I have had one of mine smoke and smell funny. I cracked open the case and a rubberband holding some wires together had gotten too close to the power supply and melted some. So maybe you have something making contact there.

 

[huesmann]

Originally posted by: lchyi
Hehe yea, it shouldn't be bad, considering Pentium 4 procs can go to 90C before shutting down, car heat will be cake for it.

Yeah, but it may not the be the CPU that's the weak link in the system.

 

[JesDer]

it is mostlikely the PSU or the MB. That amount of heat could break the seals on capacitors. Check all the Caps on the MB and in the PSU for signs of leakage. Other than that, the 200w PSU might be a little low powered to drive the system to begin with.

 

[optimistic]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm going to look at the system closer when I get home tonight. It still runs, co-worker was able to shut it down after she smelled something funny. Might be something else like you guys said, since the proc looks fine.

And the PSU has been powering a 1.2 thunderbird w/GF4ti200 for 1+ year fine. So it's not under powered or anything.

 

[Slammy1]

LOL. I thought you were going to say someone stole it. It is LA after all.

 

[Yai]

Originally posted by: Slammy1
LOL. I thought you were going to say someone stole it. It is LA after all.

yup from topic I would think the same HA!.

BTW I think your system should be okay, I have run my computer with CPU 53C system 40C almost every day for these past two weeked without a problem. It cloud be some plastic part, tho.

 

[yhelothar]

heh i thought about heat...

 

[optimistic]

Okay.

I've cleaned and lapped the retail heatsink, re-applyed thermal grease, installed a system slot blower, added an extra intake fan, removed the AGP video card and switched to a slower spinning hard drive all in an effort to reduce system heat. It's pretty loud now, but I'm sure I won't get any more problems from it. *sniffs the air*