I just found out computers can freeze-- literally...

[TreasonousBastard]

Frozen to death.

Left it in the car for a few hours when the temps were around zero, and now nothing.

I thought the battery gel might have frozen because it won't hold a charge, but it doesn't work while plugged in.

It seems like the hard drive isn't kicking in-- could the cold have screwed up some bearings?

Anybody else had a computer freeze to death?

[hobbit709]

1. Let it sit at room temp overnight and try again.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. I did-- it's still dead.

[lastlib]

3. is it a laptop? or desktop/tower?

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Laptop. With a revolving touchscreen.

[lastlib]

6. What I'm reading is that moderate cold generally.....

...doesn't have any severe adverse effect on the battery, but prolonged exposure to severe (sub-zero) cold can degrade lithium-ion batteries over time.

Guess I would next have to ask if the machine is booting at all, or at least going thru a POST test. Is anything displaying on the screen once you power up?

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Hit the "On" switch and the keyboard lights up...

for a few seconds while it tries to boot. And the fan runs.

Then nothing. The screen is dark. No bios stuff. No post. Nothing.

And I don't remember what the drive sounded like, but I don't hear anything that sounds like a drive.

It be dead.

Anyway. I talk to our IT people in the morning and they should FedEx me a new one. I'm just curious if anyone has seen this before-- I've never heard of it.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Let the drive warm up thoroughly and then try again ...

if the lubricant in the drive gets too cold, you may get a case of 'stiction'. Once the drive warms up it can spin freely.

I've had drives come with warnings that they should be allowed 12-24 hrs to warm up indoors if they arrived by mail.

Of course, no BIOS and no POST sounds odd. Maybe caps on the MB froze ?? Next to the drive and batteries I would think the caps are the weakest link.

[TreasonousBastard]

9. 40 hours and it's still dead. Well, whatever it is, a new one's on the way.

[Egnever]

5. Possible I am sure

However one of the things I sometimes do to try to save data from otherwise dead drives is put them in the freezer overnight. Sometimes this allows them to function long enough to get the data off.

Of course the temps in the freezer don't approach 0 so maybe that lower temp would do it.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. As a guess by way of postmortem

Prior to the freeze the computer may have been in a warm and humid environment. Exposure to the low temp created condensation which maybe killed something in the CMOS or perhaps somewhere else on a subsequent power up.

I try to always keep them between 40 to 100°F. Sorry for your trouble but hope it works out.