Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 January 3

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January 3

How much passive cooling does RAM need during sleep?

I have a new "small form factor" PC which lives in a cupboard under my desk (my room is extremely small, so it would be awkward to have it out in the open). The case is a positive pressure design which pushes cool room air in from the front (I leave the cupboard door open when the computer is in use). The cupboard has an open back half an inch from the wall and lots of space on top of the PC. The CPU and GPU temps seem fine so far in use (this bit is to reassure the people who will inevitably say "your PC shouldn't be in a cupboard").

I am however a little wary of using sleep as opposed to hibernate. I have found plenty of websites that say that you don't need active cooling during sleep as the passive cooling is sufficient, but will I run into problems with the RAM overheating if passive cooling is significantly reduced (i.e. with the cupboard door closed)? Thanks in advance Equisetum (talk | contributions) 16:36, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Even in conventional PC, RAM has no heatsink and is pretty densely packed with little regard for airflow. A conventional PC turns the case fan off during sleep, removing any hope that would cool the RAM. So clearly PC manufacturers don't feel the need to care about RAM temperature. Components which are prone to overheating usually have temperature sensors addressable over the System Management Bus, and in general everyday RAM doesn't - I think some workstation RAM does (but that's as much for guarantee-terms verification for FRU RAM modules). So RAM manufacturers don't seem to think it's enough of an issue to worry about. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:15, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks - I also did some more thinking after posting, and given that general opinion seems to be that is is fine to put a laptop in a case when it is asleep, it should similarly be fine to put a desktop in a closed cupboard - fast resumes here we come! Equisetum (talk | contributions) 00:11, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I second that... ram cooling at this point in time seems excessive in most cases when the machine's running. When it's in sleep mode, very slight. A machine at sleep (I think you mean a laptop since you're talking about putting it in a case) draws very few watts, so I think the possibility of ram damage in a case is slight. For what it's worth, I regularly put a mac of mine in my case while in sleep and I have no issues. Shadowjams (talk) 11:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that the concern is not the RAM but everything taken together. The power supply may generate more heat in sleep mode than the RAM does. In US government tests at least one desktop computer used an astonishing 83 watts in sleep mode. I'm pretty sure you're safe, but in any case it's easy to test. Just leave the machine in sleep mode in the closed cupboard and check the air temperature periodically. The air would start feeling very hot long before it reached a temperature where it would damage any component. -- BenRG (talk) 19:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Multimedia Presentation Tool Recommendation

Hi all, I will be presenting a group skit/play for a competition sometime in January. Last year, my team won in part by including a "live Twitter feed" of characters in the play that was really a collection of Photoshopped images in a powerpoint presentation. Looking to take it to the next level this year, I was hoping for something that could serve as an "information dashboard", hopefully including a couple modules, like the stock price of the fictional company in which the play is set, a news ticker, maybe some video, and if possible a way to live poll the audience from their smartphones and laptops (I know this is probably too much to ask, but hey, why not try?). Can anyone think of a way to do this? I'm considering building a webpage to run locally off of my laptop connected to a projector, but I'm not sure if I could do it, or if it's even possible.

Tl;dr: Anyone know a way to make a presentation to run during a skit that supports updating images, text, and video? Thanks, 99.224.140.65 (talk) 16:39, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I can't think of a quick off-the-shelf way. You could build a site with a content management system like Joomla. Popular CMSes have plugins for things like stock tickers, webcams, twitter feeds. There are also some polling plugins for Joomla (and surely for its competitors). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Spyware/malware concern at a library

I told someone about this but it seemed unlikely she would investigate. Maybe the problem will happen to someone else.

At home I don't even use search engines. I limit myself to a few trusted websites which have either a link or a button. Some of the others don't even work when I got to them from home but the college library has been closed for the holidays.

But at libraries my usual routine is to type the topic into the place where the URL would go, and whatever search engine the computer uses gives me a list of results. The one I want is often first. Yesterday after the Google results came up, I clicked on the appropriate link and found myself redirected to a page which looked sort of like search engine results; this type page most often comes up after a typo in the abbreviated URL (i.e., just "wikipedia.org"). Whatever page this was, the URL looked like they wanted me to buy something. I tried again and got a similar page, and I did notice something funny about the URL of this page--it had numbers of the form XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX in place of the usual address (such as en.wikipedia.org"). The first "XXX" actually had a 2-digit number, 62 or 67, and some of the others had 2 digits.

Sorry there's not more detail but I was working with a time limit. Including the need for time to do "real world" stuff.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:58, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Badware that screws with search engine results is popular indeed (on Microsoft Windows). They should obviously keep all they can up-to-date (the OS, Java, Flash, etc.), disallow users installing things on most computers (as most users will undoubtedly not need anything close to custom software), and they may as well also restore the entire system from an image every night (overwriting any changes to the systems whatsoever)…
…or they could just switch to a free Unix system. :p
Unfortunately, if they aren’t doing any of this already, it’s probably because they don’t have the budget for it… but hey you could let them know, maybe someone will be interested. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I just remembered something I forgot. The first time I tried to click on a result I was asked to confirm that I actually did click on the link I intended to, but I couldn't understand what it was I was supposed to do. There were a bunch of links I was supposed to click on and a brown background. When I clicked on the back button intending to start over I got a pop-up saying "Thank you for cooperating."— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:36, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Identifying by name the specific item causing this is an academic exercise; the appropriate way for them to deal with it is to do a clean install and restore from an image of it every night (or even only on-demand). ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:11, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The number of the form XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX is an IP address and isn't necessarily a sign of foul play, though it's rather rare to see them in the URLs of legitimate web sites. -- BenRG (talk) 01:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Definitely malware - I cleaned up something very similar on my sister's PC only a couple of days ago. Suggest to the library staff that they get it cleaned up. It is easy to do and free tools are available that do a reasonable job. It shouldn't be a big deal for them to do it themselves, but they'll probably have some contract with a third party to deal with all maintenence issues for them. Astronaut (talk) 02:33, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I was told the county IT department handles it. Anyway, I'll ask about it next time I go there in about a week.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:27, 6 January 2013 (UTC)