[ColinWright]

I made this comment elsewhere[0], but I'll repeat it here:

I recently took a flight from Belgrade via Istanbul to Birmingham (UK). Hand luggage only, no checked luggage.

At Istanbul they took my laptop from me, gave me a receipt, packed it in bubble-wrap, put that in a suitcase with lots of other bubble-wrapped laptops, and put it in the hold.

Yes, I got it back in the baggage reclaim area, but it was cold - seriously cold - I didn't dare turn it on for several hours to let the disk warm up slowly.

This is making international travel a complete crap-shoot.

Take precautions people. Backup your data, don't travel with your valuable laptop.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14436259

[gizmo385]

Is there legit in harm in starting a very cold computer? I've actually never heard that before and it would be a good thing to keep in mind if so.

[crististm]

Cold things tend to condensate water vapours when brought in warm rooms.

[8note]

but by that point, the moment it's in the airport again, it's toast

[ColinWright]

The problem is getting airflow through the system. If there's no turnover of the air then the problem is minute.

If you turn it on then warm, moist air is drawn into the cold chassis, and that's when the problems happen. If you don't turn it on then the air that was always in it it still there, and the problem is minimised.

So if it's extremely cold, don't turn it on.

[noir_lord]

Depends I guess, most components are specced to around or just under zero, some military spec stuff is down to -40C, I don't think your laptop would like -200C.

I think the concern for me of having a cold machine taken of a plane into UK weather right now (24C and humid as hell) is the condensation that would build up if I started sucking damp warm humid air into a stone cold machine.

[sliken]

Things shrink when cold, oil thickens, bearings don't like to not be lubricated. So I'd worry about fans and spinning disk drives mostly. Certainly no harm in letting a laptop get close to room temp before starting.

[pasbesoin]

Batteries are a lot less efficient. I don't know whether discharging/using them in that state has a persisting negative effect, these days

Thermally induced contraction and expansion can become an issue, particularly with marginal cases.

I wonder about the tolerance some discrete components may exhibit, e.g capacitors. For that matter, how much does that resistor vary over larger temperature spreads?

Anyway, I let my equipment warm up (or, when very warm, cool down, e.g. sitting in the trunk of the car in summer).