Drive temperatures over 50?

wing · Post by **wing** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 10:29 am

I was freaked out when I ran SpeedFan yesterday (thanks SPCR for the link!) and found that one of the PC's has a cpu temperature in the 50's and hard drive temperature in the 80's. I shut it down and found a dead cpu fan.

As a makeshift measure, I swapped out the dead fan and installed a 80mm case fan. (There was no case fan, it was an old Celeron box.) Now the cpu temperature looks normal, but the disk is still over 50 degress C even after letting it cool off by more than 12 hours.

Does this look like the drive is going to be dead soon? Thanks.

Pauli · Post by **Pauli** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 11:43 am

I don't know how much you can trust the reported temps for your hard drives. If it is not too hot to touch for 5 or 10 seconds, then it is probably OK. If it is, then you should try and improve the airflow in your case so that the hard drives get a fair amount.

I've noticed that if my drives are reported above 50C, they are too hot to keep my hand on for more than a few seconds. I target 40C for my drives when they are being used intensively (video encoding and such). They are typically under 34C when idle or under light use with ambient temps of 20C.

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 11:49 am

also try dtemp ( http://private.peterlink.ru/tochinov/ ) for hard drive temp reporting.

I find anything over 45 seems extremely warm to the touch. Mine idle at around 10-15 degrees over ambient (around 30-35 degrees) and max out at 45 during a long defrag.

lm · Post by lm » Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:34 am

My seagate 7200.7 160GB PATA idles at 34 degrees C according to software.

wing · Post by **wing** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 8:47 am

This is so embarrassing... I must have been too tired or something... I think I got the temperatures mixed up.

When I re-read the SpeedFan temperatures a couple of days ago, I found nothing for drive temperature. It seems that it was actually showing motherboard temperature and CPU temperature, not CPU and drive

So it's the CPU temperature that's still over 50

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 2:21 pm

wing wrote: So it's the CPU temperature that's still over 50

Is that still a Celeron? Over 50 at idle or under load?

I've got a celery with zalman HS (see sig) and it idles around 32, maxes out at 46'ish

wing · Post by **wing** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 11:02 pm

wooglin wrote:
wing wrote: So it's the CPU temperature that's still over 50
Is that still a Celeron? Over 50 at idle or under load?

I've got a celery with zalman HS (see sig) and it idles around 32, maxes out at 46'ish

I believe it is a Celeron. It has the stock heatsink which is just a few fins. The dead fan which used to be mounted on top has been removed.

And it's over 50 at idle. Scary.

wooglin · Post by **wooglin** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 6:46 am

wing wrote: I believe it is a Celeron. It has the stock heatsink which is just a few fins. The dead fan which used to be mounted on top has been removed.

And it's over 50 at idle. Scary.

Dead fan? Removed? Put a new one on it!

wing · Post by **wing** » Mon May 09, 2005 12:45 pm

wooglin wrote:Dead fan? Removed? Put a new one on it!

Belated update: The fan was replaced and then the CPU temperature did not change

So I took the heat sink off thinking maybe I need to remount the heatsink (scary, I did not know that Celerons come in a bare die, and I was rocking the heat sink when I replaced the fan) and found that there was no thermal compound.

I put some generic thermal paste between the heat sink (with the new fan) and the cpu, and the temps are now normal

Shadowknight · Post by **Shadowknight** » Mon May 09, 2005 5:08 pm

Signs your hard drive is too hot: extremely slow response in doing anything in windows. or freezes for minutes at a time.

Due to replacing my 120mm Evercool with a Nexus, and putting the Acoustipack filter in the front of the case, my airflow was significantly reduced. Temps were the same for other components, just not the hd, which shot up about 20 degrees. Max recommended temp is 55, I got mine around 58. I went ahead and replaced it with a WD raptor, since I don't trust it anymore. I put a Nexus in the front to prevent this from happening again, and it keeps the Raptor at about 38 degrees. I'll hook it back up to transfer data over, and maybe use it as a secondary drive, but I have no idea if it was permanently damaged or not.

Splinter · Post by **Splinter** » Mon May 09, 2005 5:13 pm

Check Event Viewer for HD errors

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Mon May 09, 2005 11:38 pm

Don't trust dtemp/speedfan/smart sensors for temperature reporting. They have been shown to be up-to 20C off the mark.

The "finger on the disk" method is more reliable.

If it's getting hot, then you're in the 40C mark or above and should consider additional cooling, if you are worried about disk life and loss of data.

In some cases the hottest components are some of the small ICs at the bottom of the HD (on the circuit board). I'm not sure if the temperature of these is critical though, but the inner platter temp is and that is reflected on the outside shell of the hd.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue May 10, 2005 5:41 am

FWIW, there's a max HDD temp sticky just a few posts above this one, right at the top of the forum.

niels007 · Post by **niels007** » Tue May 10, 2005 5:49 am

50 is VERY warm and scary to touch. My harddisk had a probably fairly accurate temperature probe stuck to it, and at 46 degrees it felt very warm. The hands on test is a good indication if the reported temps are near..

I installed the probe because I thought the temperature must be 50+, it turned out to be sub 50, which just prooves how scientific our fingers + being scared about data is