I am trying to figure out the best place to set up my security Mac set up at my new house.

I am either just going to use two of my iMacs or maybe two of my G4s and connect them wireless to my desktop in the house from one of my out buildings. The best place to set them up would be in a garage section that is unheated and uninsulated (best for wireless and hiding the cameras and wires). This gets rather cold in the winter and humid on the summer.

My second choice is in my workshop. The camera placement is not the best but the workshop is insulated but not heated 24/7. It normally remains around 40 but when it was below zero it got down to freezing without the heat on for a couple of days. My wireless is iffy with my Powerbook but unsure how an Airport card in an iMac or G4 would work yet.

I could put them in my new fitness room but I rather not due to the windows (could see the Macs) and for some reason, I just can not bring myself to put holes in my new drywall.

I noticed that the recommended operating temperature is 50F. Since these would be running 24/7 do I need to worry about that? For condensation/humidity, I am using the Drizair system that Bird recommended awhile back as it works great.

If they're running 24/7 I don't see humidity being as much a problem, but components sometimes don't function correctly if they get too cold, or too hot, that's why the operating temperature limits. I'm wondering what would happen if it gets down to 0 and they're in the garage for example.

I was wondering how the extreme cold would effect the hard drive and if the heat generated from the cpu would be enough to keep it going. If I use an iMac, I suppose it would be easy to build some type of enclosure to rain the heat but then I would have to be careful to remember to take it off when it got warmer.

I have an iMac in my fitness room and put it to sleep daily and so far it is fine. However, it stays much warmer there.

I hope to dig out one of my iMacs this week and figured I would let it run and see what happens but hate to ruin a hard drive.

I've run computers in laboratory cold rooms with no problems. (4 C high humidity). As long as the computer is never turned off they run fine. The hard drive and electronics should be able to take much colder as anything important puts out some heat, as long as it remains running. When we remove a computer from a cold room we hustle it out and let it run for a day at room temp before we shut it off. Even that is a bit overkill as the warm parts as they cool are not going to be water condensing surfaces.

Looks like poly has done some real world testing already. Condensation wouldn't be a problem since it's running, it would keep most internal parts warm, I was just wondering if the components would act flaky at the extremes. If that starts happening when it gets too hot or cold you'll know what the deal is. You can be our beta tester.

I'd be more concerned if it was a tower with an external monitor, the monitor would be asleep and cold, and if it kicked on when damp or cold what might happen.