Odd Theoretical Question...

[bladephoenix]

Hi,

Just wondering about something. I just finished building a home webserver and I decided to place it on a desk directly right beside a refrigerator (We have one in the basement). Some of my friends have pointed out however that placing it right next to such a big appliance might cause some magnetic interference and possibly damage the hard drive over time. On the other hand, I have had a couple people say that it might be an ideal cooling setup, which, for a computer that is always on, might be a good idea.

What is your take on this?

Thanks.

 

[alpineranger]

Interference: Not an issue. I'm sure hard drives are engineered to handle mild external electrical fields.
Cooling: Not only will your computer not be cooled by the adjacent refrigerator, but ambient temps will actually be higher. Refrigerators are basically heat pumps, so the heat that was on the inside gets moved to the outside (along with additional energy from the compressor and whatnot). Now, if you're going to put the computer inside the fridge, that would make a difference (although I wouldn't recommend this either as condensation inside the refrigerator can cause major problems.

 

[Yanagi]

Network transfers WILL be corrupt. Running that with an unshielded TP cable will make the electrons inside the cable go goofy and all transfers will be corrupt.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Yanagi
Network transfers WILL be corrupt. Running that with an unshielded TP cable will make the electrons inside the cable go goofy and all transfers will be corrupt.

If anything they'll be slowed down rather than corrupted, since alot of data will have to be retransmitted due to errors.

 

[bladephoenix]

Thanks for the info! I will move the computer somewhere else (maybe on the other side of the desk).

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Yanagi
Network transfers WILL be corrupt. Running that with an unshielded TP cable will make the electrons inside the cable go goofy and all transfers will be corrupt.

If anything they'll be slowed down rather than corrupted, since alot of data will have to be retransmitted due to errors.

This depends greatly on how much electrical interference the fridge puts out. Your data will NOT be corrupt. In fact, it will probably work fine -- computers work just fine in rooms full of other computers, which also put out a fair amount of EMI. I'd actually be more concerned about noise on the AC lines if they're plugged into the same circuit.

First off, the whole point of twisted-pair wiring is to take electrical noise in the environment into account; it effectively filters a whole lot of it out by using subtractive voltage measurements between the two signalling lines.

Secondly, every commonly-used network protocol has some sort of data integrity test that is used at the packet level to ensure that your data has not been corrupted (some protocols use a simple XOR parity; others use block parity, CRC checks, or other more sophisticated methods). With TCP/IP, corrupted packets are resent until they get through cleanly. Because of this, data corruption while downloading is almost always because of instability in the CPU or RAM, or a bad NIC (which may be corrupting the data after the checksum is verified, or not doing the verification correctly).

 

[slpaulson]

Originally posted by: bladephoenix
On the other hand, I have had a couple people say that it might be an ideal cooling setup, which, for a computer that is always on, might be a good idea.

I hope that the reason you think it's an ideal cooling setup is because it's in the basement, not because it's next to a fridge...


Either way I wouldn't worry about interference. I highly doubt the magnetic field your fridge is putting out would do any harm to your harddrive, considering there are some pretty damn strong magnets inside of a harddrive.

I have my TV right next to my fridge and my microwave in my room and I've never had any problems with that. I don't see why a computer would have any problems.

 

[bladephoenix]

Just out of curiousity, how much would the ambient temperature in the case rise? I have left it on for about 24 hrs, and when I feel the side of the case that it facing the fridge, it is slightly (very slightly) cooler than the side opposite to the fridge.