* Imran Chaudhry (ichaudhry@???) wrote:
> Hello LUGites,
>
> We're having a clearout and we want to put aside several PCs in the
> garage. They are desktop sized. Ideally they would be in the house
> somewhere but domestic harmony takes priority.
> I want to take some sensible steps in storing them properly.
If you are putting them in the garage, then I guess that you don't
need them for use. Why not sell or otherwise dispose of them.
>
> We also have a few components like network cards, hard discs and CDROM
> drives which we're keeping in a couple large sealed plastic tubs in
> which we've placed some silica gel packs.
I don't think the silica gel will make much difference unless you
have a perfect seal on the case. A better solution would be to keep
the temperature slightly above ambient, so that way you will
eliminate any chance of condensation. If you have any appliance
such as a freezer, running in your garage, then make use of the
waste heat.
>
> With the PCs my idea was to:
> - Wrap each in a sealed plastic bag to keep as airtight as possible,
> with a silica gel pack in the bag
> - Keep them towards the rear of the garage to reduce the exposure to
> cold and moisture
>
> A neighbour recommended "vacuum seal" bags because the air in the
> plastic bags will still cause fungus/mould and whatnot to form.
If you have access to the proper equipment and laminated bags. Normal
polythene is porous.
>
> Also when taking them out and into use the sensible advice would be to
> let them reach room temperature and settle for a while (few
> hours/overnight?) before turning on?
The best thing would be to warm them up in the garage before moving
them. This is not a problem in the summer. I did have to move a
monitor to my shed and back a few times, and I just turned it on.
The picture would be a bit screwy but once it warmed up/dried out,
it was fine :-) I don't recommend this if the equipment is valuable.
>
> Just after some general storage advice, tips and any solutions that
> folks may have.
You could always loan the equipment to somebody who could make use
of it. Does any of it include a quad core processor with a few Gig
of RAM by any chance? :-)
--
Philip Stubbs
http://www.stuphi.co.uk
