Dell Inspiron Mini Server Issues

Awhile ago my old Dell Inspiron 1000 laptop's hard-drive failed, so I decided to upgrade it to the Dell Inspiron Mini 9". I need a machine that can sit in a crawlspace under the house, with the lid closed, and run 24/7 as my weather station server for my Davis Vantage Pro weather station.

The Inspiron 1000 lasted nearly a decade in these conditions, with no issues. I was excited about the solid state drive in the Mini 9" as fewer moving parts should keep the thing running longer.

Unfortunately, the machine completely locks up after about 48 hours. I was having to cold-restart it to get it to run for another 48 hours or so, and so on and so on. Obviously not a viable server solution when access to the machine is restricted; as it is in my setup.

My solution was to have a scheduler task run every 24 hours, that would restart the machine. It's running Windows XP Home edition, and as long as it reboots every 24 hours, there are no issues.

Lame that I had to jump through these hoops.