PC does not run in a not so cold room. What could go wrong?

My PC refuses to work in a comfy 8C-12C (45-55F) appartment I enjoy living at this winter. I need to heat a room up to 20C just for him precious. It's a luxury I can barely afford.

At 8C (48F) nothing loads - black screen.
At 10C BIOS loads, but windows XP doesn't
At 12C Windows barely loads, frequently stalls during load or during first 5-10min of operation
At 15-20C everything works perfectly; BUT after heater is turned off, Windows is eventually crashes into a black screen. Starting up requires heating room up.

What system is responsible for this weird behavior? Does anyone have a clue?

 

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so yoou compuyter doesnt work unless its the right heat??

 

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Yup, that damn thing does not work at temperatures < 12C at the times when I need it the most.

 

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It's essentially the chips, but it's pretty finicky, by the sound of it. Most chips have a much smaller 'temperature window' to work in than most people believe, but mostly their problem is overheating. I think it 'should' work properly around 10 degrees centigrade, so this is a bit weird. Interesting.

Try insulating your central box, maybe? But first, can you control motherboard temperatures via your BIOS? Maybe you could throttle down the cooler on the CPU in tiny increments until it stays warm enough? If it can, there might be some utility on your original MB disks that lets you alter it on the fly from within Windows...

 

Strange, my PC has no problems when running below freezing point, and I essentially use it as a heater... your problem puzzles me somewhat. Sorry, no answer from me.

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I'm with Dreamwalker, that's strange. Computers are what I do for a living and I can't think of any reason why being to cold would cause one not to run.

 

How old is your PSU? It may be old and knackered, but once its warmed up, its starts to kick out the right wattage you need.

Or the wiring in your apartment can't be safe.

Cant think of anything else...

Is it still under warranty? Get it checked out or take it to a friends and do the same kind of testing.

 

Computers are Semi-conductors they are suppose to be able to operate at room temperature and "Below".

However Hard-drives can Stick when they are cold since, it sounds to me that the problem is simply your hard-drive not working straight away and not being detected.
You could possibly warm your harddrive up (Boot-ups were originally designed for this, namely starting everything up to operate efficiently) or look towards getting a new C drive that can withstand a lower temperature better.

 

You could turn the fan down, although you'd have to be careful.

I had a similar problem with my old P100. It wouldn't start @ all. I just pointed a fan heater at the case for a few minutes and then it worked fine. The heater could be turned off after it started.

Possibly the air temperature is not an adequate indicator of the temperature inside the box. It is insulated, usually quite low down and little air flows through it. It may well be that its temperature is much lower than that of the room.

 

Yep, metal boxes can work like a cool-box especially when they're in a draft (some windows leak enough to blow out a candle).

And indeed, be very careful with that CPU-fan. Try other stuff first, like insulation, also against possible draft.

 

people have played tith liqued nitrogen as cooling, so suuuuub zero degress are not the problem and 8 degrees are not that cold anyeway, i would guess on its your powersupply thats some how not putting out the power needed when cold.

 

Maybe it could be humidity - condensing when the room gets cold and shorting something in the computer.

Holy crap! 8C-12C is "comfy"?!!