What would happen if a computer was run in a complete vacuum?

[UnrealAlex]

Just curious I dont know how this thought wandered in, but what would happen?
Would it get really hot because there are no air particles to dissipate heat to?

 

[zexmarquies01]

Just curious I dont know how this thought wandered in, but what would happen?
Would it get really hot because there are no air particles to dissipate heat to?

you are very much correct!

Plus, if you have any fans, they will burn up, because they would have no air to keep their motors cool. Though, they should hit a pretty high speed due to no resistance to slow it down!

I'm not sure how it would affect a HDD. ( assuming one found a way to cool the HDD so it doesn't burn up ). Since the discs in the HDD spin...makes you wonder how it would react.

But yeah...your CPU, Northbridge ( if you still have one ), south bridge, EVERY Mosfet...hell with it...everything that generates heat WILL fry. Though, the CPU would be the 1st to burn up.

But look at the bright side of things...It couldn't catch fire, since there would be no oxygen to let it ignite! So while the PC fry's, at least your house wouldn't catch fire!

 

[freakdiablo]

I bet if you had some extreme liquid evaporation thing it would keep pretty cool, since the liquid would evaporate at an extremely low temp (think higher altitude=lower water boiling point). But then it wouldnt be a complete vacuum since the water particles would be floating around.

 

[Malpine Walis]

Well, as stated, you would only have conduction and radiation for cooling and both of those are just not going to help you anywhere near enough.

As far as the hard drives go, unless there has been a really bid change in technology in the past few years, the heads use a small air current to keep them out of physical contact with the media. so if you take the air away from them, you will probably cause a hard crash.

That does not however mean that you should never try to think outside the box. There are some industrial grade electronics enclosures designed for harsh environments that are fully sealed against air infiltration. While not strictly a vacuum, they do have to be designed to remove the heat with no actual holes in the case such as for fans.

Such enclosures do use fans but only for internal circulation. Typically, the cases are filled with dry nitrogen so that humidity will not become a huge issue. then they actually use peltiers to transfer the heat outside of the case.

 

[bing]

If there is any electrolyte cap, they will leaks or worst blow out !

 

[Drinkyoghurt]

what if you let it run in the vacuum of space, cold boot issues? i mean its really cold out there right, so shouldn't that cool the pc off by a great deal then?

 

[MRD]

What would cool it off? Even though space is cold, computers are normally cooled by contact with other particles (conduction). That's why a heat sink works better than air, which works better than nothing.

You would get some radiation heat loss. The chip would heat up and give off infrared radiation, which would cause some temperature lowering, but it would be pretty subtle until the temperature got very high, and the amount of heat lost through radiation isn't really affected by ambient temperature, only by the temperature of the radiating object.

Keep in mind that temperature is determined by how many air molecules hit an object and at what speed they hit (the kinetic energy in the air). So if you have a vacuum, there are no particles there to hit it, so it doesn't really have a temperature (in the vacuum itself). If you take a hot object and throw it out in space in a complete vacuum, where it's not getting any EMR, it's just going to slowly approach absolute zero in temperature as it radiates away heat.

 

[Malpine Walis]

Also, who ever said that space is cold? sure, if you are far away from stuff then it does get down to 3 degrees Kelvin (the temperature of the universe as a whole). But in direct sunlight it gets quite hot. A quick google search tells me that stuff in direct sunlight on the moon rapidly gets up to over 120 degrees Celsius. And that is for just stuff. If you are running a modern processor, it is producing internal heat as well.

 

[Jon]

I'm surprised no one has said, "It would suck", yet.

/runs and hides

 

[MRD]

Yeah, I suppose the more correct statement is that "deep space is cold.' Obviously, it's not cold near a star.

 

[DorianBrytestar]

Also, who ever said that space is cold?

I do.

However, stars and other things that glow white hot and throw out a massive amount of radiation and heat are not.

 

[Malpine Walis]

I'm surprised no one has said, "It would suck", yet.

/runs and hides

I suppose that that is a question of perspective. If you were inside the vacuum, it would blow.

Don't try to claim that you did not ask for that one Jon.

 

[Jon]

I suppose that that is a question of perspective. If you were inside the vacuum, it would blow.

Don't try to claim that you did not ask for that one Jon.

It's just no fun trying to be witty with you around

 

[FudgeNuggets]

Colour me stupid, but there has to be a way for them to work because as far as I know, satellites do not have any kind of artificial atmosphere.... even if they are not at a high enough atmosphere/orbit, what about the ones that are sent across the galaxy like V-Ger or the Mars ones etc... They were working and transmitting the whole way, not just when they got there.

 

[torin3]

Colour me stupid, but there has to be a way for them to work because as far as I know, satellites do not have any kind of artificial atmosphere.... even if they are not at a high enough atmosphere/orbit, what about the ones that are sent across the galaxy like V-Ger or the Mars ones etc... They were working and transmitting the whole way, not just when they got there.

Oh there are definitely ways to design them to work. However just popping an off-the-shelf unit into a satellite isn't it.

Using a low powered CPU with a large passive heat sink would be a way to start. You could also seal your hard drives in a case that has atmosphere to work properly.

Definitely doable.

 

[Enablingwolf]

Space is not cold. It just lacks warmth. Ala - an object with fusion.

 

[MRD]

Heat sinks don't work if they have nowhere to move the heat to, an ultimate reservoir, e.g. air or water in our systems.

But yes, it's possible to design a system to work. You might need some amount of air present though, or some other coolant (it could be liquid) that would dissipate the heat.

 

[torin3]

Heat sinks don't work if they have nowhere to move the heat to, an ultimate reservoir, e.g. air or water in our systems.

The heat sink can work through radiative losses, provided the heat input is low enough and the sink is large enough/has access to the outside of the satellite.

 

[MRD]

Radiation is a crappy way to lose heat though. It'll work, but you need a lot of surface area radiating and a small amount of heat being generated.

 

[Hardin]

I'm surprised no one has said, "It would suck", yet.

/runs and hides

The correct term would probably be "this blows".

And V-Ger != Voyager