Re: LaCie drive going down!

I learned about heat issues when I got my very first computer. It was an Atari 800 with Percom floppy drives. I was having trouble with them and took them back to the dealer who couldn't reproduce the problem no matter how hard he tried. But eventually it was narrowed down to a controller chip that was overheating.

So I built a simple cooling fan for it and that solved the problem.

For a brief time I ran a Media 100 system in a non-air conditioned room. When it got to 90 deg. F, I started having problems with the hard drives and crashing. I immediately stopped work, bought an AC unit, and the everything ran smoothly after that.

So while operating an AC unit will raise the cost of electricity substantially, it also ensures that all your hard work won't go down the tubes due to hard drive failure. It'll reduce the amount of dust floating into the room and into the equipment. It can also make a difference in fatigue factor as well.

Dean Sensui -- www.HawaiiGoesFishing.com