Is 42C too hot for a harddrive?

[Jubei]

I built my PC in winter and with ambient temps of around 20C, the CPU was around 27-30C most of the time when idle or browsing the internet.

Now that it is summer, temps are significantly higher. According the Speedfan, I have:

CPU: 37C
Chipset: 42C
Harddrive: 42C

1) Are these temps normal when ambient room temp is around 29C?? I'm more worried about the harddrive which seems to be gain heat till around 42C regardless of ambient temp.

2) Does the Zalman CNPS7000 blow air across the fan shaped heatsink towards to case rear, onto the heatsink (ie towards the mobo), or away from the mobo? I'm asking this because I'm wondering whether I should taken away the duct of the side panel since it might affect airflow inside the case from having a direct path to the rear of the case.

3) Will swapping the stock fan on the Asus A8N-E with a Zalman NBF47 lower temps or will I need another quieter fan to blow onto it??

My setup:
AMD 64 3200+ with Zalman CNPS7000 AlCu and AMD Cool & Quiet enabled
Coolor Master Centurion 5 case with rear 120mm case fan at low with Fanmate 2 (front fan disabled)
Asus A8N-E with stock chipset fan
WD 200G SATAII drive
Videocard is an ATI X700

[autoboy]

Your temps are fine. replacing the northbridge heatsink with a passive one will help eliminate noise but won't help the NB temp. A NB temp of 45C is perfectly acceptable.

[nici]

How did you measure the chipset temp? Very few mobos reort actual chipset temperature, it´s usually just a sensor somewhere on the board.

Just as a reference, without any fan running in the case and the case open, the NB47J on my DFI board(i finally got it mounted with nuts and bolts..) reads over 60°c after fifteen minutes of idling. Measured with a Fluke IR termometer. Putting a very, very slow fan near the chipset will half the temperature. A fan on the GPU will be more than enough airflow if it blows even some air towards the chpset.

So i would put a NB47J on the chipset if the noise is bothering you, its very easy on the A8N-E. Just be careful

The 7000 blows air towards the mobo.