ok well i have an old Dell Inspiron 7500 that i might be using in my garage and hooked up to the garage's sound system. the garage isn't heated or anything so i was wondering what the operating temperatures u would say the laptop could work in?

 

Just make sure you dont block any Air vents, and you should be fine? has long has it doesnt get 115F like in Arizona u will be fine

 

more concerned about cold weather...Ohio...

 

im not sure laptops can get too cold, enless the plastic freezes and cracks

 

The only real concern cold wise is the fluid bearing in the hard drive freezes, I live in Mass and it happens very rarely on my car computer, I think onlytwice this year it wouldn't boot because the HD was to cold, mind you this was single digit weather for that to happen, actualy this morning was one of the two times, 7 deg out.

 

Absolutely! Since you're using a laptop, it's not as much of an issue. That being said, you should never fire up a computer or any electrical component that's been sitting in ice cold temperatures right away. You should try to let them warm up to at least room temps and then fire it up. Most electronics never see extreme colds/heat, as they are inside in ventilated and cooled/heated areas. However, if something gets too hot or too cold, there's always the potential for damage.

Cold electronics can produce condensation if its too cold and then they are rapidly heated by the general heat of the system. It doesnt happen alot, but I have seen it happen. A system running too hot will simply spit fire and brimstone

My suggestion would just to bring the laptop in the house at night. By doing that, you keep the components at a better temperature so when you do fire it up, the cooler outside area in the garage will actually be just fine for the laptop.

 

Honestly I wouldn't even worry much about waiting for it to warm up to room temp before turning it on, my car pc has been in for 2 years now and there's been no ill effects from that, the DC-DC PSU I have turns the PC on 5 seconds after the car starts so in the winter it's always very cold when it starts, actualy some people have used TEC's to rapidly heat up the HD in cold weather to thaw the bearing so the computer can boot up without waiting like 15-20 mins for the car to warm up and then heat up the HD enough.

 

i live in PA and i deal with this frequently with some of the sound, lighting and video equipment we have at church. condensation actually is a pretty big problem for us. we used to keep all of the electronics in the back of a semi-trailer during the year and only bring them inside when we reached our venue for the weekend. after years of extended sitting in the cold, then rapidly warming via internal heat has caused some damage to our lighting control computer. it constantly has little glitches and reboots itself, we're guessing from some of the condensation damage. having recently replaced a lot of the sound gear, we roll it off and inside all winter to protect it.

i would keep it inside and heated as much as you can--take it out only when ya need it there.