Moved to P150 from Super Lanboy - now much higher HD temps

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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notion
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Moved to P150 from Super Lanboy - now much higher HD temps

Post by notion » Mon May 08, 2006 7:39 pm

In the Antec Super Lanboy, my hard drive temperature was 28 degrees Celsius. Now that I have moved to the Antec P150, my hard drive temp is 42 degrees with the same components.

(In both cases I used DTemp.exe to measure the temperature of the drive.)

Components:
Antec Phantom 350 power supply
Nexus 120mm fan
Pentium 4 2.8C processor
1 GB memory
Western Digital 400 GB hard drive

If I use the included Antec 3 speed 120mm fan (which is loud) then the temp goes down about 2 degrees when at the medium setting.

Why is the hard drive temperature so much worse in the P150?
Any suggestions on improving the temperature while keeping the noise down?

Thanks.

hravn
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Post by hravn » Mon May 08, 2006 10:18 pm

That seems a bit high I would say, my three suspended drives (Hitachi x2, Maxtor x1) hovers around 35C with 1-2 (doesn't make any difference) 120mm Nexus. As to why...

Did you use the Super Lanboy with just one nexus as well?

Bluefront
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Post by Bluefront » Tue May 09, 2006 1:43 am

I'm guessing here....were you using the Lanboy (aluminum) with the drives solidly mounted to the drive cage? This gives a decent heatsink effect for the hard drives.

The p150 (steel) does not give the drives much of a heatsink, made even worse if the drives are suspended.

Other than that.......hard to say.

notion
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Post by notion » Tue May 09, 2006 3:46 am

I just had one Nexus in the Lanboy. No fans in the front. The drive was sitting on two strips of of sorbothane and was not directly touching any metal in the lanboy.

Most of the heat difference is likely caused because the air intake on the lanboy was a very open section in the lower front of the case -- which meant that all the intake air went over the hard drive. In the P150, the air intake is along the whole front of the case on either side, so not as much air goes over the hardrive.

Should I add a 92mm fan to the P150 in the front?
Is there a 120mm fan that produces more airflow without being much (or at all) louder than the Nexus?
Can I block some of the intake of the P150 to better funnel the intake air over the hard drive?

JimX
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Post by JimX » Tue May 09, 2006 5:18 am

notion wrote: Can I block some of the intake of the P150 to better funnel the intake air over the hard drive?


That's what I would try first. Block the upper half.

Just put the drive lower down, OK? :D

jimmyzaas
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Post by jimmyzaas » Tue May 09, 2006 6:45 am

I have two 92mm fans to cool my hard drives in my P150.. and I still noticed a sizable difference in HD temps between the P150 and the SX1030.

The SX1030 had only one 80mm fan blowing on the two hdds.. and strangely.. the HD temps were always 21 degress centigrade. In the P150, it jumps to 29 degrees!

But I guess there is always a compromise between silence and heat..

krille
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Post by krille » Tue May 09, 2006 7:05 am

Although the temperature difference you are describing is substantial, I still don't think 42C is too hot for a HDD. Certainly your HDDs won't last as long being this much hotter, but is the difference in redundancy tangiblel? I don't know. So you probably are safe, although I agree it's mighty suspicious.

Anyone having HDD temp issues with the P180 with the fan removed, using only the PSU fan (say a Seasonic S12)?

~ Kris

JimX
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Post by JimX » Tue May 09, 2006 7:26 am

krille, when I had 2 HDDs in my P180, I didn't have a fan installed. Temps were in the mid 30s. PSU was a Fortron with manual fan adjustment, modded with a Nexus, running at 700-750 rpm (about the airflow of a Seasonic?). When I got a third HDD, they jumped to 38-40c, so I added a fan.

GebissetDK
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Post by GebissetDK » Tue May 09, 2006 7:33 am

I've installed a single 92mm Antec Tricool in the front of the P150 to cool my single drive. Otherwise it was getting very hot ~45-50 degrees. The only other fan blowing air out was the 120 mm Antec Tricool at the back, and my 6600 GT is also providing a fair deal of heat and not getting rid of it :)

autoboy
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Post by autoboy » Tue May 09, 2006 8:22 am

Whats wrong with 42 degrees? Seems very safe to me considering they rate them for 60C. OH MY GOD 42C!!!!! Maybe your temps are higher because...wait...its almost summer and you house is no longer so cold your nipples get hard.

JazzJackRabbit
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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Tue May 09, 2006 9:15 am

autoboy wrote:Whats wrong with 42 degrees? Seems very safe to me considering they rate them for 60C. OH MY GOD 42C!!!!! Maybe your temps are higher because...wait...its almost summer and you house is no longer so cold your nipples get hard.
Hard drives that reach 60 degrees (assuming temperature sensor is correct) tend to die very fast. At 40 degrees, the highest of my 4 drives being reported, they drives are already fairly warm to the touch. I wouldn't want them to be any warmer.

nick705
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Post by nick705 » Tue May 09, 2006 4:19 pm

notion wrote: Can I block some of the intake of the P150 to better funnel the intake air over the hard drive?
Have you tried blocking some (or all) of the grille on the back next to the PCI slots?

The Nexus has a fairly low airflow, and given that you also have a fanless PSU the overall flow through the case won't be very high. If much of that flow is being "short-circuited" via the back grille close to the exhaust fan, there won't be much left coming in through the HDD area. The Lanboy doesn't have the vent on the back, which might explain the difference.

You'd need to keep an eye on your GFX card temps, but if that's a problem you'd probably cool it more effectively anyway just by leaving off the next PCI slot cover below the card...

I think blocking up any of the front intake slots around the edge is likely to make it worse rather than better - the "internal" front panel doesn't really have any significant openings other than the HDD fan grilles (unless you've broken out the 5.25" bay covers and not installed drives in their place), so you'd just be further restricting the amount of air that went in that way.

/edit: doing something like Ralf has done with tape here might not be a bad idea though... :)

JimX
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Post by JimX » Wed May 10, 2006 12:12 am

nick705, I totally forgot this. I always do it, and I thought that everyone else does it! In my gf's P150, I blocked the rear vent, and HD temp was 34-36c.

Image


Then I partially blocked the lower 92mm front intake, and it dropped another 2 degrees.

Mr_Smartepants
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Post by Mr_Smartepants » Wed May 10, 2006 1:08 am

Focused airflow. Gotta love it. :D

nick705
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Post by nick705 » Wed May 10, 2006 2:20 am

JimX wrote:nick705, I totally forgot this. I always do it, and I thought that everyone else does it!
Yes, I'm not really sure what purpose this particular "feature" serves. I could understand it if the back panel was identical to the Sonata, which has (or had) that plastic duct thingy and they were trying to economise on production costs, but as far as I can see it's a different pressing anyway.

It seems to me that on its own, the vent won't do anything very useful - being so close to the exhaust fan, the airflow will take the easy option and go straight in and out, not going anywhere near the hot bits. I suppose the GFX card might get a small amount of cooling in passing, but even there it's not really targetted in the right direction...

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