Sigh, Hard drive discoloration/rust like appearance

Well much like my wireless card, my hard drive is doing similar things. Note the bigger hard drive to the right, which is stored into the same room, does not have any issues. But the two (2) components in the Dell laptop is doing the whole rust and discolor thing.

I'm convinced there are serious case defects in the early production models before Dell changed case manufactures. Likely serious grounding issues or something, why else would components be doing this.

It's not from moisture, water spills or anything It's a harsh dry environment in my house due to the wood burning stove as the source for heat.

Also, it's not only the two spots highlighted that are doing it, in other pictures you can see all the little holes are even doing the same thing. Likely where chips and such are soldered to (Sorry for my ignorance but I'm not electronic engineer).

Should I give Dell a jingle and rage hell or just let this fly..

Never had computer equipment discolor and rust on me before.

Also, I have noticed the drive performs terribly to what it use to when I first got the machine. I thought it was from changing the drive from ACHI or w.e to ATA (or vice versa) to dual boot XP.

Advice on what actions should I take please?

 

Well, I would call Dell. Worth a shot...

 

my guess is heat! it looks the same colour a brand new soldering iron goes after being used for the 1st time!

 

Why didn't I think of that possibility!

But you really think that would happen at a max temperature of 35 degrees C?

My desktop drives get at 50 sometimes and none of them have faced this problem.

Strange stuff.. I might give Dell a call, but I wanna see what others think.

But I think you're onto something bro.

Note: I always have a laptop cooler on my laptop - to anyone wondering.

 

thing is that when solder actually melts it doesn't dis-colour, however when metals get very hot (but not enough to melt) they will dis-colour, hence why the soldering iron dis-colours!

the fact that it stays at a cool 35C is a bit strange tho! Also, that temp of 35C might be the temp of the actual read/write head & the disc, but the board underneath the drive might be getting a lot hotter!

Use it for a bit, then touch the bottom of the HDD, roughly the area you have pictured, and let us know if it is overly hot.

 

When did Dell change case manufacturers? Or do you mean from 1520 -> 1530?

 

They changed manufactures for all the painted Inspirons.


As for the hard drive temp, it's ice cold. Naturally with my notebook cooler blowing air across the entire, i mean entire bottom of the laptop.

Sigh.. LOL I'm picturing my data going poof one day when I forget to back up.

 

hi! i used to work as Failure Analyst (FA) in one of the Dell's hard disk supplier for laptop and i have some information regarding your inquiry. the plstic thing that you've seen is what we called FPC (flex printed ckt) and that thing are not supposed to have discoloration, we dont know if its corrosion or what. 2.5 HDD have tolerance of +65c to -10c so 35c wont do it.

 

Well.. That's does it.. Giving Dell a call now..

Is this a common problem in 2.5" drives or what? NEVER in my life have I seen it and I'm a drive junkie sorta. Should I be alarmed and prepared for a failure any time soon or will it be ok for a week or so?

Like I said, never seen computer equipment in all my years of experience do this crap. Sometimes with liquid cooling but never in a dry environment and under my circumstances!

My girlfriend is gonna think I'm nuts, always calling Dell getting parts.. LOL

 

One thing that can probably cause corrosion is ozone - though I am not sure it would cause rust.

The other thing is it might not be as dry as you think in your house - when you burn gas it creates carbon dioxide and water. When you burn wood it will do something very similar - along with any moisture that was in the wood in the first place. It will then circulate in your house until it either gets out a gap or it condenses on a cold object.

 

Oh - and when the fire goes out and the house cools the humidity will rise.

 

Good points made but I have special equipment in the house that removes and detects all those types of deadly gas's that can build up. As well as machine that pull humidity and such out of the air. But it is a possibility.

Regardless to what ever the problem is - it's not effecting any of the other computer parts, and machines in my office besides the laptop.

Which I think would write that problem off..