Computers & Servers in Extreme Heat

In hot weather you are likely already planning how to adapt your working day. As well as your people you will want to consider your IT kit as a hot environment can impact its performance and be detrimental to its health.

At high temperatures servers & network equipment are at risk of hardware damage causing them to fail, if you don't already keep them in an air-conditioned room and instead keep them in a closed cupboard that space can heat up dramatically. We strongly recommend doing what you can to keep them cool, 27°C or below using portable air con or fans to move air. Normally you would want to keep them at a much lower temperature, around 21°C is ideal.

With laptops and desktop computers high temperatures can cause them to reduce their performance as when the processors get very hot, they will throttle their performance to reduce the temperature and limit physical damage. You may see this as the computer being "laggy", slow to respond and when that happens, we would recommend taking the following steps:

• Close any unnecessary applications & browser tabs
• Leave the computer for 5 minutes to give it a chance to cool
• Ensure the computer has airflow around it

In cases of extreme heat there is a fail-safe thermal cut off which will turn your computers and servers off to protect them and not allow you to start them until they have cooled down. If this happens do not attempt to restart them until they have had suitable time to cool down as that fail safe means you are at substantial risk of causing damage.

John Fisher

Meet John Fisher, founder of Westway IT, passionate about helping businesses thrive with technology. With a BSc in Computer Science, he values integrity, education, and quality relationships. Active in The Tech Tribe and CompTIA, John simplifies IT and creates scalable strategies. Connect with him on LinkedIn.