At 10:56 AM 8/18/2004, you wrote:
>Heres my second dumb question.  What is adequate ventilation?  This is an
>office desk, two stacks of drawers on each side, hole for your knees, wood
>in the back comes within 5 inches of the floor.  My computer is a custom
>built job by the local tech store.  Thanks for the help.
>Regina Long

The fact that it is not a brand computer, like Dell, HP, Sony etc, changes
the equation a bit, because it has not been "engineered". That doesn't mean
that there is anything wrong with it, but it hasn't been tested, and
certified, in a controlled environment, for a particular configuration, to
see how much heat it will handle. The people who built it have no more idea
then you do about how much heat it will handle.

But as long as the ventilation holes, and exhaust fan(s), are working
properly, and they can draw cool air in from the front, and out the back,
without constraint ,then I think you're OK. Modern motherboards and CPUs
have internal circuitry that shuts them down when they get too hot so the
only thing really at risk here is the hard drives. When they run hot all
the time they <may> have a shorter lifespan.... and then again maybe not.

  My quick and dirty test  is that if it feels too hot to put your feet in
with the PC, you probably want to put the PC on the side or the top of the
desk anyway.

Rode
The NOSPIN Group
http://freepctech.com

                  Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
               articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                          http://freepctech.com