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Thursday, 20 May 2010

Should I refrigerate my PC?

As temperatures in the UK begin to rise for summer (BBC Weather), the silly question is: Should I refrigerate my PC?

Your PC contains several components that get hot when used, particularly the processor (CPU) and the graphics card/chip set (GPU). Anyone who uses a laptop for more than half an hour will begin to see the effects of modern design. That is to say that more powerful chip sets = more heat, and that, modern design = minimal provision for cooling. So laptops without a hard surface to sit their 2mm feet on soon overheat. It does make you consider chucking it in the fridge to cool it down! Unfortunately this is not a solution. If you put your laptop in the fridge you are likely to get condensation forming INSIDE your laptop. This would not be very helpful as electricity and water really don't mix. You could in fact wreck your laptop.

To prevent your laptop from overheating you should properly ventilate the area around it. Always use it on a hard surface. If it runs really hot (like when playing games/DVD's) you can cool it with a fan. Overheating components are more likely to fail or even catch light. So happy hot weather weather computing from www.webwarpblog.co.uk just in time for the British summer.

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