Temperature in PS3 with large Hard drives.

yoshytoshy

Hello , wondered if anyone is in the same boat as myself.

I installed a scorpio 320GB hard drive a few months back and only now think that it's causing the PS3 to heat up.

I get about 15 minutes out of the ps3 ,before the fan kicks in loud. This wasn't always the case with the machine ,so I'm wondering is it the hard drive ?

CombatCow

Well I had a Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM in my phat PS3 for months and months and I never had any issues, Is you PS3 inside a tv cabinet, maybe it's not getting a good airflow.

CC

heebusjeebus

OP, is that the 7200rpm or the 5400 model?
The 7200 will produce more heat so like CombatCow says, ensure the PS3 isnt sucking in its own hot air.

Kintarō Hattori

I've been using a Scorpio 320GB 5400rpm for well over a year now with no issues. I have the PS3 on the stand below to make sure it's well ventilated which no doubt helps keep the noise down:

ongarite

7200 RPM laptop drives run no hotter than 5400 RPM drives these days.
A couple of years ago that may have been the case but now they all run quite cool (depending on manufacturer)

RangeR

ongarite wrote: »

7200 RPM laptop drives run no hotter than 5400 RPM drives these days.

You cannot beat the laws of physics, Jim.

ongarite

RangeR wrote: »

You cannot beat the laws of physics, Jim.

You can with fluid bearings and better seek patterns and heads.

All the reviews of WD Scorpio Black range say that the idle temperature is 1-2C higher but the same as 5400RPM drive at load, during operation.

Huge difference in temperatures depending on manufacturer. A Toshiba 5400RPM drive in the same review ran 12-19C hotter than the WD Scorpio Black 7200RPM. Maxtor drives also run very hot from my own usage in desktop & laptop models.

Hellrazer

Ive teh Scorpio in mine and Ive never noticed any difference than before I upgraded it.

What I did notice however was dust and loads of it.Before assuming that the hardware is to blame hoover that PS3 out.

yoshytoshy

Them there answers are much appreciated.
I have my ps3 sitting on top of a media unit ,but the top of my plasma tv is about 20 inches away from the ps3.

If I can get a picture later of my setup ,maybe it would be easier to judge.

thanks for the replies.

yoshytoshy

heres a picture ,it's a little dark but you get the idea.

RangeR

I see a potential problem. Is that room south facing, by any chance?

yoshytoshy

not sure ranger ,think it's north facing. I had to put the tv in this corner as it's the darkest corner of the room. Otherwise I can't see the plasma.

Kenno90

i highly doubt thats the problem , my room is south facing and doesn't affect the ps3 at all , besides we live in Ireland how much sun could it get:rolleyes:

if you still have the old drive , try putting it back in and see if it is the hard drive thats the problem

RangeR

Fair enough. Close the curtains while using the PS3. See if that makes a difference. Does the sun shine in that window at all or is that corner always in shade?
Is there a radiator [convector for the purists] behind that TV?

L31mr0d

yoshytoshy wrote: »

heres a picture ,it's a little dark but you get the idea.

Vengeance Trilogy... nice!

Quick question, are you sure its the fan and not the Bluray drive itself making the noise?

I have a 320GB Scorpio in mine as well, and noticed no increase in fan noise because of it. That being said when I game I usually have the speakers up to ear bleed volume so I never notice the sound of the PS3 anyway.

yoshytoshy

L31mr0d wrote: »

Vengeance Trilogy... nice!

Quick question, are you sure its the fan and not the Bluray drive itself making the noise?

I have a 320GB Scorpio in mine as well, and noticed no increase in fan noise because of it. That being said when I game I usually have the speakers up to ear bleed volume so I never notice the sound of the PS3 anyway.

It's definetly the fan thats making the noise

I've left the ps3 on at the cross bar all evening and theres not a whisper out of it.
Have had the tv on aswell.

If I download a large file under the same circumstances and the ps3 got noisey ,would that mean the drive is the problem ?

CombatCow

From what your saying it sounds that way, Is the hard drive making a clicking noise at all ? Could be on the way out...


*what theme are you using btw :P

CC

yoshytoshy

Hard drive is fine as far as I know ,started playing games and the fan started roaring again.

Tempted to strip the ps3 and add some thermal paste to the chip set.

NOGMaxpower

5,400 rpm drives are the only drive you sholuld be using any higher RPM and you will eventually run into trouble.

500 gig is the max 320 is the recommended upg.

RangeR

When the fans roars up, where is the hottest place on the PS3?

Is it around the hard drive bay or is it somewhere else?

ongarite

NOGMaxpower wrote: »

5,400 rpm drives are the only drive you sholuld be using any higher RPM and you will eventually run into trouble.

500 gig is the max 320 is the recommended upg.

Loads of bollocks. There is absolutely no proof that using 7200RPM drives shouldn't be used and modern 7200RPM drives run cooler or as cool as 5400RPM drives.

There is no maximum HDD size or no recommended size. 500GB was the maximum size of HDD to be installed as it was the biggest 2.5" HDD available on the market.

NOGMaxpower

ongarite wrote: »

Loads of bollocks. There is absolutely no proof that using 7200RPM drives shouldn't be used and modern 7200RPM drives run cooler or as cool as 5400RPM drives.

There is no maximum HDD size or no recommended size. 500GB was the maximum size of HDD to be installed as it was the biggest 2.5" HDD available on the market.

hmm you seem to be a grumpy chap.

If you do your research you'll find that the 7200RPMs do indeed cause issues.

# 1: Is heat
# 2: Is noise (HDD noise, moves faster increaseing the adudible levels of the disc = to be expected happens in all HDDs).
# 3: Is noise created by the fan spinning more to cool the hot HDD

Benchmarks have shown the data transfer rate on on a 500g Vs 320g to be slower on the 500g which is why the 320g is a recommended upg.

Simple to test, put 2 PS3 side by side power the up and the 320g powers up quicker and loads quicker.

As I said in the previous a post in time you will have problems.
Ongarite, are you just upset at someone proving you wrong or challenging your intellect?

RangeR

Guys, let's knock this 7200 issue on the head or you might be off to The Thunderdome. Both of you are right and both are wrong. Older 7200's may be hotter and noisier than newer ones.

NOGMaxpower

RangeR wrote: »

Guys, let's knock this 7200 issue on the head or you might be off to The Thunderdome. Both of you are right and both are wrong. Older 7200's may be hotter and noisier than newer ones.

In the interest of fairness I'll have to agree with RangeR. THis argument has gone on for ages, there's tests on both sides (just did another goolge on it).

Prob is his fecking attitude in the 1st place lol if it was real world he'd get a shlap

yoshytoshy

RangeR wrote: »

When the fans roars up, where is the hottest place on the PS3?

Is it around the hard drive bay or is it somewhere else?

The heat is coming from just under the serial sticker at the back of the ps3 ,blu-ray side. It happens when I play from discs and from the hard drive. Wipeout will get the fans going after about ten minutes.

It takes a little longer when looking at blu-rays for the fan to kick in ,maybe about 40 minutes.

Star Bingo

was wonderin myself whether the installation on a 500gb WD was causing excess noise/heat from my slim, so i operate it from another 'room'. isn't bluetooth great - but i went to extreme lengths to eliminate operational noise in particular from my devices recently, the slim triggered this obsession. even ditched my Toshiba M30 for Macbook Air.. for form not performance... n sheer silence. was due a change, this is the 'puter i have waited for since 1986 undoubtedly and not one damn disc/spin in earshot.. solid muddafukin STATE. only thing left was a tiny pitch from my Sammy, turned the backlight down 1 its gone usually have some form of early 80s wave cranked up so was oblivious til the slim dropped just what a cacophony of machines there actually was

- i suggest you put guys ur slim on a rack (even raid the grill for 1) because the underside heats and the feet don't raise it from the ground enough n if its distressing for me it must be distressing for the PS

Flaccus

NOGMaxpower wrote: »

hmm you seem to be a grumpy chap.

If you do your research you'll find that the 7200RPMs do indeed cause issues.

# 1: Is heat
# 2: Is noise (HDD noise, moves faster increaseing the adudible levels of the disc = to be expected happens in all HDDs).
# 3: Is noise created by the fan spinning more to cool the hot HDD

Benchmarks have shown the data transfer rate on on a 500g Vs 320g to be slower on the 500g which is why the 320g is a recommended upg.

Simple to test, put 2 PS3 side by side power the up and the 320g powers up quicker and loads quicker.

As I said in the previous a post in time you will have problems.
Ongarite, are you just upset at someone proving you wrong or challenging your intellect?

There is still no empircal evidence to suggest 7200rpm drives cause issues over time. In fact some of the newer 500gig 7200rpm drives are so efficient they actually consume only a fraction more power than their 5400rpm counterparts. For example the new Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500gig 7200rpm drive only consumes 0.05% more power than a typical 5400rpm laptop drive. Which means these drives do not cause over heat issues or the fan in the PS3 to speed up significantly just by themselves. Even drives that consume more power (though not significantly more) than their 5400 brethren (the WD Scorpio Black 320gig 7200rpm), work fine and I have yet to meet anyone who has had a failure over this. I do admit some of the older 7200rpm models can put out more heat, but all this means is the temperature thresholds on the PS3 are reached more quickly causing the appropriate fan setting to kick in. Any modern 7200rpm drive works fine as manufacturers use more efficient read/write algorithms, power saving features etc.. to reduce power consumption.

As regards performance, you said the data transfer rate on the 320gig is faster then the 500gig and your evidence is bootup time and time to load games. This performance increase is more related to the actual random access time rather then pure transfer speeds as the larger drives generally suffer in this area but the difference is not huge. When it comes to pure transfer speed which you say the 320gig drive is faster at, this can be subjectively tested by copying a large file to your internal PS3 drive from say an external drive. The 500gig drives (be it the 7200rpm Seagate (only 7200rpm 2.5" on market right now) or the 5400rpm WD Caviar Blue) are generally faster then their 320gig counterparts, due to the fact the 500gig drives only have 2 platters. Lots of reviews have proven this, and shown the 500gig 5400rpm WD Blue matching the 320gig 7200rom WD Black in real world benchmarks, and surpassing the 320gig 5400rpm versions. So the 320gig does not have higher performance than an equivalent 5400rpm 500gig drive as you suggest.

Regarding recommended upgrades - The only reason people upgrade to the 320gig instead of the 500gig is because 1. they want the 7200rpm model (which offers very little performance improvement over the 500gig counterpart but they want it anyway as it's 7200rpm). 2. the 320gig 5400rpm model is cheaper than the 500gig equivalent. 3. they don't need 500gigs of space. It's got nothing to do with the 320gig being the preferred upgrade due to higher transfer speeds which it doesn't have anyway.

Finally who said 500gig is the max drive you can put in your PS3 ? Is there a technical reason for this ? There is already a 750gig and 1tb drive available from WD, though their form factor (12.5mm high) most likely precludes them from being installed as the internal drive in a PS3 but works fine as an external drive.

RangeR

yoshytoshy wrote: »

The heat is coming from just under the serial sticker at the back of the ps3 ,blu-ray side. It happens when I play from discs and from the hard drive. Wipeout will get the fans going after about ten minutes.

It takes a little longer when looking at blu-rays for the fan to kick in ,maybe about 40 minutes.

Then I would assume that it's not the hard drive at all. It's the wrong side of the PS3.

Now to save me reading over everything again, have you tried the following...

* Playing a disk based game during the day
* Playing a PSN game during the day
* Both as above but at night [sun down and relatively colder room]
* Folding @ Home [day or night - THIS will stress the PS3 for heat. Is it any different to what you are seeing now?]
* DVD or Bluray movie playback
* AVI [media file on hard disk] playback
* MP3 playback

Do any of these cause you the same problems or do some of these NOT cause the problem?