MBP HD Overheats?!

I have a Santa Rosa MBP 2.2 GHz. The machine gets pretty hot, as these things do.

I put a Hitachi 7K320 in it and it worked fine for a while. The HD is supposed to have the same heat/power characteristics as a 5400 drive, but spins at 7200 RPM.

Now my hard disk often makes a weird clicking noise, and then everything stops, e.g. programs don't launch and OS X generally appears frozen. Sometimes it recovers, other times I have to restart. Disk Utility finds nothing wrong with the hard drive.

I think it's overheating because if I use smcFanControl to really up the fans, everything is just fine. I have previously lost a 7K200 hard disk due to heat (I think), but that one gave no warnings, it just died suddenly one day.

Does anyone have experiences with the 7K320 in their MBP? Can the HD recover from heat or should I just replace it right away? Like I said it seems to work fine as long as I keep smcFanControl running...

I have iStatPro and it shows 42 deg C for the HD temperature. But the temperature as reported by iStatPro seems to not change for hours at a time so I think the sensor doesn't update properly, or there is something wrong with iStatPro.

 

All of the 7200rpm drives run hotter. I know they advertise differently, but in my experience, they do run hot. If your HD is overheating, then I would not wait, I would buy a new one right away, and I would go back to the 5400. The speed difference IMO isn't worth losing your data over in an unexpected crash.

 

doesnt a MBP have the option to spec it with 7200rpm drives?

42 degrees is still cool for a HDD. around 50 degrees and ill be sweating

 

My Hitachi 7.2K 200GB HDD normally stay @ 35C-40C levels

It goes up to 40C-46/48C levels when i play games couple of hours

I never saw it past 50C levels .

 

I believe Hitachi HDDs are specced for up to 55C operating temperature, but I don't think it's that easy to get the temp up that high. Highest I've gotten with my 7200.3 after hours of gaming is 48C. In the MBP, the HDD is pretty isolated since it sits up in the front. The hot components are the CPU and GPU and they are at the back right where the heatsink, fans and vents are so the heat shouldn't collect in the front where the HDD is. I don't think the HDD should heat up to failure just by itself.

Is the rest of the computer hot? If the CPU or GPU gets too hot they would throttle down to save themselves. Or the HDD may be defective like somethings loose and it's the expansion from heating that makes the problem known.

And iStat Pro like anything else monitoring HDD sensors, is simply reporting what the SMART system in the HDD is telling it. SMART is supposed to be a standardized system in all HDDs and any program should report the same numbers.

 

Yeah man, definitely sounds like an overheating drive. Best you get that think backed u and replaced asap. It is not entirely uncommon for the HD sensor to be misleading. I have had similar situations in the past in which my temperature reading sensor for my CPU fan was mislead causing my computer to overheat and freeze up. (Look at my created threads for in-depth story).

 

My Hitachi 5400 is running at 29 degrees right now. This is on a 17 inch Penryn MBP. I think that 29 or 30 degrees is the normal operating temperature for this system.