W7J and hot palmrests

Just got my W7J and am quite happy overall with the laptop except for the heat on the palmrests. It gets QUITE warm, especially on the right side. Is that typical for this laptop? My IBMx31 (which is smaller than the W7) has absolutely no heat on the palmrests. It is annoyingly warm. It's too bad, because the rest of the laptop is terrific. Any other W7 owners experience this?

Drew

 

5400rpm hard drive right under your right palm....... super thin construction. For that size and thickness, it's as normal as you're going to find.

 

Not quite... as I understand most of 13.3" notebooks are thinner....

but yeah, heat is normal. Get used to it, you'll appreciate it once the colder months of the year kicks in.

 

ChazMan421 posted a "Guide to Cooling Down Your Notebook Computer" ( http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3005&guide=cooling+your+notebook)

 

As well, most laptops in that size category uses 1.8" Hard Drives, which are slower and produce less heat, perhaps that may be some kinda of difference.

 

I've been meaning to ask about this but never got around to it. Ima jack this thread cuz it has to do with the hard drive.

I heard about 6 months to a year ago about a new technology being developed for hard drives that implemented a 1gig memory chip that could handled all the small updates to the drive. As soon as the chip became full, it would update the entire gig onto the hard drive at once eliminating the need for constant hard drive accessing.

This was actually designed to reduce energy consumption. They said that next to the screen, the hard drive is the biggest energy consumer in a notebook. That may not be completely true with all the new gaming rigs with high consumption GPUs, but the point is that this technology was being developed and it would also massively reduce the heat production.

Any word on when we can expect this in laptops??

 

Those Seagate drives are actually out or close to it... I think they're going to be a big deal.

But back to jsis' comment..... my "super thin construction" comment was based on the thickness of the palmrest itself. You're looking at a 1/32" between your rosey palm and the bottom of the hard drive which is going to transfer heat. There really are no good ways around this without the chance of screwing up the hard drive over time or just directing the heat downward which causes the same problem in another area.

 

Sorry to bring it back... could I get a lappy right now and upgrade to one of the newer hard drives with the chip after, or is it going to take up too much room for a standard HD bay?

Do you know what these drives are called or where I can get more info on them?

 

From all the information I've read, they're 2.5" drives and I think they're only coming in SATA - so you'd need a notebook to support it, but it's a normal size.

Seagate sent me some information a while back, but I could have sworn I just read something in the last day or two in a major mag about them.

 

is there a special name to this kind of HDD? I upgraded mine to a seagate 7200RPM 80GB HDD in my w7j. I'm afraid the 7200rpm is gonna make it run hotter although i hear seagate HDD tend to run cooler than hitachi.

would a laptop cooler help with this? if the HDD is that close to the palmrest, 2 fans blowing below the laptop doesn't seem would make ne difference.

 

Hybrid Hard Drives. Dunno if manufacturers will only produce SATA drives, but there's still a bunch of notebooks out there using PATA drives so I could definitely see an upgrade market.

How thick is the X31 compared to the W7J where the hard drive is? The X31 uses 2.5" drives too and should be on the right side below the keyboard and part of the palmrest.

 

Well, while the seagate does tend to run cooler (by a bit) than the hitachi, a 7200 *will* run warmer in most cases than a 5400 stock HD (more speed=more heat generated), which may be another reason why Asus probably doesn't ship with a 7200. Notebook cooler will help a little with a 7200 upgrade by keeping the overall internal chassis temp a bit lower (so some of the HD heat is drawn into the main airspace), but the 1/32" space from the HD to palmrest will still conduct plenty of heat up since it's so close.

People can't seem to grasp the concept that high powered, compact systems made utilizing CF (or even regular plastic) are going to run warm and there will always be heat transferred to the chassis shell - exactly where depends on the relative location of the heat generating components. Especially in the W3 and W7 chassis this means the HD underneath the palmrest as opposed to somewhere under the keyboard, where no one would likely ever complain, but the layouts in little boxes like these don't allow for that, and then the CPU would probably have to be closer to the palm, so you'd trade one element for another.

W3 and W7 owners have a smoking, sweet and sexy machine made of high-end quality materials. There is a price (trade-off) that must be made for getting all that in the package it comes in. Just sit back and enjoy it .

 

re: palmrest heat
a) proper typing posture will elevate the wrist and palms off the misnamed "palmrest", thereby negating any heat issues emanating from your hard drive.
b) a little personal heater during the winter is great. especially when your actual heater breaks down.

re: hybrid hard drive upgrade
the seagate hybrid drives will require windows vista for the huge cache to be recognized and utilized. what i'm really looking forward to are the completely solid-state flash drives.

 

flash drives are going to be great.

 

Yeah, the seagates run more efficiently than the hitachis, so I wouldn't totally worry about that, but evena 5400rpm is going to get warm in a tiny notebook like that... so I don't know... you're going to have unreal performance, and if you can make use of that ssay 80% of the time...... I wouldn't worry about it. A cooling plate for home would be a nice thing to use as anything to help keep it cool is always good... but I wouldn't worry about bringing it out with you or anything like that.

 

Cool thanks. Yeah I'm planning on using the cooler while im working on it in my dorm only, not gonna carry that around. Plus if I'm carrying it around I'm probably running on office/battery saving mode ne way, not playing games, so I'm hoping it won't get nearly as hot anyway.

 

Right.... well no matter what mode you run the cpu and the gpu...... the hard drive can't slow down it's spin rate (would be really cool if it could...... actually... awesome), but you'll always be creating heat and using more battery..... but I really don't think it's a big deal.

 

I'm going to bump this up rather than start a new thread on the same topic.

I just received my W7J today and although it's an amazing piece, I found within 30 mins, the right palm rest was annoyingly warm. To the point where it kind of pissed me off.

If I got a seagate 5400rpm HD instead, is it going to be much cooler than the one I have in it currently (which is whatever comes with it).

Any other options as otherwise the laptop is a beauty.

 

Not at all. Actually the max operating range in fuji hotachi and seagate is within a few degrees from each other. Try to deal with it. its all too common. If you want a cooler drive try a WD drive or a 4200 rpm drive

 

Thanks. I'll have to do exactly that.