winter outside use of laptop

[redfox1971]

Hopefully the skys will clear soon and i will set scope up on my patio slabs,i was hopeing to try some dso photography with my canon 1000d camera attached to eyepiece of telescope,i would like to connect my laptop to camera to enable focus and live view,what is worrying me is will the cold and damp damage my laptop,do i allow laptop to adjust to outside temp before turning on? i understand when bringing laptop back in house that you must not turn on for atleast 2hrs,my gut feeling is telling me not to until warmer times and no dew about,any views on this?

[Doc]

I have had my laptop out in minus 5 figures and it was fine, also I've had dew dripping of it and once again everything seems fine.

[Photosbykev]

personally I turn my laptop on as soon as possible. The screen normally stays clear because of the internally generated heat and only the keyboard suffers. I use a cardboard box that can cover the whole laptop when I don't need to see the screen and the heat from the processor etc tends to keep the inside of the box relatively warm and keeps dew at bay. I also set the power management of the laptop so that closing the lid doesn't cause the laptop to close down or hibernate.

[Beyond_Vision]

The heat generated by the laptop will stop it from dewing up and there is no need to worry about length of time to switch on when taking it in or outdoors. You can set up the laptop so that it doesn't hibernate when you close the lid. You can then shut the laptop when not viewing the screen. You can then cover it with someting like a tea towel, but dont block up the vents. If you intend to leave it unattended you could put in somekind of enclosure that is waterproof.

Regards

Kevin

[Rob]

not a problem at all... in fact your laptop will love the chill, its heat that kills.

[brantuk]

Computer chips run better when they are kept cool so being outside with it shouldn't be a problem. And as others have said - the heat generated will keep the dew at bay.

What you want to avoid though is condensation when you bring it in. Don't want drips on the circuits. It should dry out fairly quickly but if you're in any doubt then let it dry out thoroughly before turning on. I leave mine 3-4 hrs and not had a problem yet

[Talitha]

This has been quite a helpful thread, thanks! I've been hesitant about taking my laptop outside, but it's reassuring to know that the cold temps won't do anything to it... will the cold affect the battery's performance?

To prevent condensation, i've always put things into a big plastic bag while still outside, so the moist house air won't come into contact with anything and condense on it. By the next morning everything's dry and room temperature, but i'd probably need to use the lappy after the session... would 2 hours in the plastic bag be long enough to bring it to room temperature? It's an HP Pavilion dv7.

[SniffTheGlove]

I haver run laptops and PC's out in a non-heated shed for years on end when I used to do my model rocket building in there and on cold nights they preformed much better than normally.

I have never found an issue with my laptops when bringing inside from the cold or when I would enter/exit the cold chiller at the testing lab I once worked out.

Only problem is when operating in 28Deg + ambient as the cpu runs very hot and does cause problems or even shuts down. I have damaged one CPU operating in 32Deg environment, the fans gave out and the temps just rose until you smell the CPU cooking.

[dlp]

... will the cold affect the battery's performance?

Yes - very much so! I trail an extension lead to my table so I can use the mains adapter.

David

[Rob]

On the battery front - maybe. But my advice would be to grab some bubble wrap, double it over and sit the latop on it with a rolled lip hugging the back of the battery.. that shiould barrier it fine. To be fair it needs to be -2/-4 for impact though. On most nights the cold will help with performance as others have said.

Regards

Rob

[Rob]

Failing that.. remove the battery and run off mains only!.

[Jake Bullit]

I would have thought most of the problems would occur when you come to bring it back inside.Maybe let it warm up slowly in your coolest room or garage before bringing it back into a warm house.

[pete_l]

So far as dew goes, it does form on laptops - sometimes in considerable quantities. It can also form on whatever the laptop is resting on, which causes the laptop fan to suck in very moist air. When we had the last clear spell - back in late Sept, early Oct I had my little netbook outside, connected to a webcam and the keyboard was literally dripping with moisture. The screen stayed dry, possibly because it wasn't pointing at the sky so it didn't cool down to the same extent (even when the power-saver turned the display off). However I was very concerned about the amount of water on the keyboard. So much so that I strung a teatowel over the machine to try and increase the local temperature.

In the past I have also, on a few rare ocasions discovered the screen (of a different laptop: Dell Inspiron, which also got a "dewey" keyboard owhen used outside) starting to frost over and had to take a hairdrier to it in order to keep it working.

All this has been in England.

[Uranium235]

This is something ive had a go at tackling tonight. Its not so much the cold, but its the possibility of being caught in a snow shower (happened a few times to me last year). So on the way home I stopped of at Tesco and got a large plastic storage box (with lid), theres enough room for the netbook, mains power sockets and scope PSU.

Together, it should generate enough heat to keep dew at bay on the coldest nights. I can then remotely control the lot from indoors

[redfox1971]

Thanks for all the help and advice,i see the way to go is have the laptop placed inside a box of some sort so it stays warm from its own generated heat.www.dewbuster.com/dewshield/laptop_dewshield.html shows such a home made box,also to run laptop by mains as battery only lasts 1hour at best(never been good from new) thanks every1.

[Talitha]

Yes - very much so! I trail an extension lead to my table so I can use the mains adapter.

David

Thanks, David!

My winter observing is done near the house, so using an extension cord will be easy.

[jgs001]

I run mine off mains, I've got a large plastic tub with a closeable lid into which all my power etc runs. I keep the power supplies beneath the screen as that's the coldest part of the laptop. The Temp monitor shows the HDD and CPU at very comfortable temperatures... the HDD at about 20 degrees, and the CPU at about 30 (ish). When running for guiding I double a towel and lay it over the keyboard and monitor, keeping the vents clear, close the lid of the plastic box and leave it. The heat from the laptop and power supplies keeps the inside of the box warmer. I'm not sure on the dew on returning indoors... I will often plug the laptop in, leaving it on overnight to keep warm, normally using the overnight powered up time as an oppo to defrag the disk.

[Skybrowser]

Defintely run it off the mains is the best advice just to protect the battery, but don't make the mortal mistake I made of forgetting the lead was trailing. I got the lead caught under my feet and luckily reacted like Joe Hart (not Robert Green!) and managed a save with no nasty crashing noise....

[jwallis]

I have an all in one computer, so everything is inside the one unit. Would this also be ok to have outside?