Summer storage

Pandamonium

Golden Member
Aug 19, 2001
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I'm looking into storing my computer for about a month during the summer. Are climate controlled units really necessary? I'm in St. Louis, MO, so I figure humidity will be high and temperatures are looking to approach 90. I'm not at all concerned about temperature- it's the humidity that has me stumped. Should I bother with trying to find a climate-controlled unit or is a normal one fine?
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
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Most computer hardware is fairly rugged if it's turned off... the only thing I'd be at all worried about would be the hard drives (and I'd be more concerned about heat than humidity). I'm sort of paranoid, so I would be sure to either back up my data first, or just remove the hard drive(s) from the system and keep them with me. Actually, scratch that -- I would back up the data AND remove the hard drives. :p

You should be able to find operating/non-operating specs for hard drives on the manufacturer's website. I doubt you can get near the non-operating temps of a CPU or RAM in a storage room.
 

uOpt

Golden Member
Oct 19, 2004
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You will not reach the temperatures that the major components have when they run with CPU load anyway.

But as Matthias said, harddrives are a different matter. Even when just lying around with constant temperature they have a pretty high chance of not getting back into business.

I would also remove dust very carefully. Dust with varying temperature and humidity can be very nasty and sit in electrical contacts, fan bearings etc.