Overheating hardrives (51C !!)

Mutant_Fruit

After recently having a hardrive crash, i installed a monitoring tool. And to my shock and horror, i saw the temps on my harddrives (160gb and 80gb) reach tempretures of 49C and 51C respectively.

Considaring the max safe tempreture is 60C, i turned my computer off asap, i.e. i just pulled out the power plug.

My question is, how do i keep em cool cheaply? I have an old cpu fan from my Athlon 850Mhz, would that be enough? Or do i need to get something bigger? AT the moment (just after being off for 9 hours) the hardrives are at 29C and 30C.

All suggestions welcome (but cheap ones please)

gobby

are your hard drives stacked on top of each other? (if so i could have a problem myself). what software are you using to monitor the temps?

BadCharlie

I had the same problem 2 weeks ago when i got a new 160dirve. My 2 drives were allmost touching one another. So what i did was just put them in differint locatoins in my box. The temps went down and i have had no more problems.

But i have also notice that the temps of my drives go high when the temp of the room im in is quite warm.

Sir Random

My m8 had a constantly hot harddrive (don't know exact temp) and when I pressed CTRL+Alt+Del to check, he had about TEN progs running in background. I disabled all of them except Explorer and Systray and now his temps are fine and the PC boots in less than half the time.

Might be worth a look to see if anything's hogging your resources.

quarryman

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit

Considaring the max safe tempreture is 60C, i turned my computer off asap, i.e. i just pulled out the power plug.

this'll prob do more damage than the heat will just shut it down normally. the best (cheapest) solution is to move the drives apart.

alternatively have a look around for a hard drive cooler. you can get coolers for the drive bays.

carbsy

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
AT the moment (just after being off for 9 hours) the hardrives are at 29C and 30C.

That's perfectly normal Mutant , my laptop hd is registering as 38C after being on for about the same time.BTW , if anyone wants the best monitoring/fan speed control util out there , visit SpeedFan .

Dempsey

Ya shouldn't let the drive go anywhere near 50'C. The MTBF shortens very quickly at those temperatures. Move the drive apart, get better airflow. If this doesnt help(it should) then the bearings on one of the spindles could be wearing out prematurely causing the heat.

magick

also make sure theirs good air flow though the pc, putting an exhust fan on really makes a difference

gurramok

Also power down the drives when not in use, it extends their life.

Lump

Just buy a hard drive fan... only about 20 europ max


John

leeroybrown

Most hard drives should work perfectly close to their maximum operating temperature. I have two WD1200JB's side by side in a case and they can get very very hot if there is a lot of activity but this is never a problem. I wouldn't worry too much about the temp but I would take any simple steps possible to reduce it slightly.

The simplest thing is to move the drives apart so that they have more surface area to cool them. Keeping the ambient temperature of your case down with good airflow will prevent the drives from overheating too.

Mutant_Fruit

well, after seperating them as much as possible, i ran a defrag.

The harddrives had reached 55 and 53 (160gb and 80gb respectively) when i returned half an hour later. I think i need more cooling. I;m gonna stick in my old cpu fan between em for the moment, and i;m gonna get some of those harddisc coolers lump spoke of, just as soon as i find em (i presume komplett sell em).

EDIT: Komplet don't sell em. I probably need a good exhaust fan (i have none) and i need 2 harddrive fans (one each). Gimme some recommendations. They don;t have to be extremely quiet, and not costing 250euro, like those water cooling kits!

gobby

could have a look on overclockers for a hard drive cooler.

Mutant_Fruit

what one in particular would you recommend> The only fans i have are the one on my CPU, and the one on my power supply.

I know nothing about the different makes etc. I don't want to get someting that'll die in 1 year.

gobby

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit

The only fans i have are the one on my CPU, and the one on my power supply.

wow! didnt realise that. so you are saying that your case has no fans at all!? its no wonder you are having problems. what you need is two case fans. one at the front to suck cool air in and another at the back to blow hot air out. i think you should probably get that sorted out as fast as possible.

as for recomending fans, well ive only ever heard good things about papst fans. (available here). check out the dBA rating for these fellas...

couldnt recomend a hard drive cooler though. im sure that most are pretty much the same. (the fan types anyway)

PPC

I'd 6 h/ds stacked fairly close together in one of my machines and they were hitting the high 40's, so i stuck an 80mm fan on 3 of them each and it dropped them to about 21*c.
My server has 4 h/ds right on top of each other and a 92mm fan in front, i turned off the fan one day to see the noise difference, and my 2 scsi drives were burning up after that. Turned the fan back on and everything was ok

Never found those h/d coolers as good tho tbh

Dempsey

Originally posted by leeroybrown
Most hard drives should work perfectly close to their maximum operating temperature.

They'll work alright but there is a higher risk of failure. Then you're in a **** storm if ya dont have stuff backed up

Mutant_Fruit

I was looking at the prices of overclockers, and they don't seem too expensive, except its sterling.

komplett sell a number of fans, for less than overclockers. But I have no idea what kind of noise 48db would be, or what 21dba is. So if i'm looking for something relatively quiet, what should i be going for?

A recommendation of specific ones from komplett, overclockers (and even peats have a few fans...) would be welcome. And also tell me how many i should be getting. I presume i need one intake, one exhaust, and possibly one more to blow on the harddrives.

Dempsey

20dB. Very quiet
48dB. Quiet Loud for PC's

Get a case fan (exhaust) should bring down the temp abit. My Raptor gets up to 35 when on for a long time and under load.

Capt'n Midnight

Water cooling ? (only joking)

Or make a drive bracket out of sheet aluminium or copper to act as a heat sink - lots of slow air - rather than a little fast air.

Note a lot of drive "coolers" are devices that are designed to pack as much dust into the electronics on the board under the drive - this is where most of the heat is produced and the dust acts like insulation - in some cases worse than no fan at all.

It's not a bad idea to use a vacuum cleaner in reverse to blow away dust in a PC everty few months.

Ryaner

I agree, the hd coolers are too small and too loud. And slower fans work alot better than fast ones. The temps drop very very quick with a fan on the disks.
Mine went from 55oC to 24oC in a couple of minutes lass time I tried it. My case temp was near 40 and disk were running straight for near two hours at this point.
Best idea, cheap fans near the disks you'll be grand. Anyway you've more to worry about from the disks startup cycles than the temps reducing their lifetime.

Ryaner

Capt you may be interested in this link
http://www.hitide.ie/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/21_22_40/products_id/77
HD water cooling by hitide.ie

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Water cooling ? (only joking)

ROLF - That's one thing I like about boards, as soon as you suggest it would be ridiculess to do something - someone will post a link - my favorite so far has been the DVD reading toaster.

- love they way they put the HDD in a 5.25" inch bay - that's going to help a lot by it's self - if your case has spare bays you'll get better cooling even without extra fans.

Ryaner

Well I try my best:P
DVD reading toaster tho? That'd be handy. Watch a film and make food. What more could you want

Mutant_Fruit

whilst i wait for me spanking new (quiet) fans to arrive, i stuck in my old CPU fan.

I did a great bit of DIY on the power cables on the fan so it'd stretch to my hd's, and then i stuck it over the hd's with duct tape. But its doing the job, my harddrives are now running at a cool 27-32C. I have yet to see them go over 40C, a whopping 15C cooler!

Señor Juárez

i got some cheap hard disk coolers, you mount the hard disk in a 5.25" bay and three tiny fans pull air in over the hard disk. not the most silent method, but cheap and efficient.

(i myself have scrapped em now, I got a new case with 5 hard disk slots, space for 4 80mm fans at the front which cools them brilliantly)

Ryaner

Once you get one of the silent case fans (which should run alot slower than the cpu fan) you should notice a further drop in the temp of the disks. Lower temps, lower noise. It's all good