Hot, Hot Hard drive

My stock Toshiba Hard Drive in my Dv5t runs very hot... when browsing for 1 hour or so on IE , it hits 50C...I need to use a notebook cooling pad to cool it down. What settings can i change or what can i do to cool it other than using cooling pad? This is the last problem left with his overheating notebook. Aleady solved CPU and GPU problems. Also i keep on hearing a crik crik sound... What can i do about this sound?

Cheers
Sean473

P.S : It nver seems to get that hot when playing games but normal web browsing and after 1-2 hours of youtube , it becomes hot....

 

Isn't 50 celcius normal for a hardrive? During the summer my harddrive was always around 49-51 celcius at idle. But it didn't go above that, even when gaming (my gpu was frying itself though).
My current temperature is 31 celcius, probably because its winter, and I also use a cooling pad (I have a logitech coolingpad with 1 very weak fan, I bet if you go for cryo or zalman it would make a big difference)...It wouldn't hurt to buy one anyway.

 

I already got a cooling pad... that's why i'm saying it runs hot... without cooling pad , it hits 50C... i need a fixed solution when i move about... CPU and GPU heat problems been fixed... this only left.

 

for crik crik, use quietHDD
for heat issue, use SSD

 

It's because it's HP. My HD also peaked at around 52C in my dv2000. But in my asus laptop, the highest i've seen is 35C. HP is just bad for heat management.

 

well i do agree with u and i know that but what can i do about heat problem other than using cooling pad?

 

Mine comes to 50C if I keep it in my lap, otherwise 44max, glass table 40C, cooler room 38C, cooling pad 34C. I don't think you should worry.

EDIT: There is not much you can do. There is software that can make HDD stop spinning when inactive(Notebook Hardware Control (NHC)), which is rarely IMO, thus making your laptop less responsive.

 

Check SMART attributes on the drive using HDTune.

Is the HD located next to any hot components?

 

50c is pretty darn high. Mine in my G51 stock idled at around 30c and maxed just over 35c. (it got hotter after I did my modifications to it, but still stayed below 40c)

 

I do believe its located in a seperate part of laptop... meaning its in a removable section... no where near CPU or GPU...but both of them remain cool... GPU in 40-50 and CPU in 30-50C..


P.S : quiet HDD installed... what settings do i have to change?

 

that could actually be a bad thing, since your fans are located near the CPU/GPU I'd imagine, so if the HDD is in its own isolated area it could be getting no airflow=bad.

 

sean, what's your temp with cooling pad?

 

currently , 54C without cooling pad and doing scan... with cooling pad , it would be 40-45C... also what settings to change in quiet HDD?

 

wow beyond 50C is hot for HDD, my scorpio black runs 46C without cooling pad.
I also have the same isolated HDD condition.. not getting any air supply
I'm thinking of getting a cooling pad

 

anyways , nobody has still not told me what to do about quiet HDD... i don't know what settings to edit.

 

Same problem here. My Fujitsu gets extremely hot, like 54C when gaming, which according to Fujitsu, is one degree away from danger temperature.

The best thing I suggest is that you get a cooling pad that focuses or has best air flow to the hard drive bay. An SSD is also a viable but extremely expensive option, as it will not be as susceptible to heat. If you don't mind voiding your warranty, you could probably drill yourself a vent on the bay cover, so more airflow from the notebook cooler will be able to get in. Do some research before you do though.

 

Set APM in quietHDD to 255 on AC, somewhere near 200 on battery (personal preference on battery). Also enable AAM if supported on your drive. Make sure they are both enabled under 'Misc Settings' tab. I beloeve, by default, that it automatically sets the values to 'max quiet' (lol) when you run it for the first time, IIRC.

The higher the value in APM, the more power your HDD will draw. Opposite is true for AAM.

APM: Automatic Power Management

AAM: Automatic Acoustic Management

 

I setted AAM to lowest on battery and AC but i'm having qualms about lowering APM... will this decrease hard drive performance or what?

 

50's a fairly good temp, although mine run constant 30C i think 60 is mean to be the red zone?

 

Different drives have different ratings. Generally though, I'd say that anything over 50C and you probably want to try and do something about it.

And my Fujitsu's red zone is 55C.

 

If you set APM to 255, the heads don't park. That's the reason I recommend to set it to something lower for battery, so that the heads park (assuming that if you're plugged in, you're not moving around). Setting to 255 eliminates the clicking sound.

AAM follows a reverse pattern (lower number=quieter).

If anything, setting these values to their highest values would increase performance. but will most likely not be highly noticeable except in benchmarks.

 

My old Toshiba drive never got above 30c period...lol. But then on my Acer, it routinely gets to 45-50 with use, but it's one of the infamous Seagate 7200.4 drives. I'm actually just waiting on it to fail. I remember a friend of mine that had one of the HP dv6 series that had a WD drive, actually took his HDD bay cover off and cut a hole in it and put some of the hard plastic mesh over the hole from the inside and it instantly cut temps like 10-15c. I was amazed. He spent around 2 grand on this notebook, then does that to it to keep it cool.

 

Actually you don't have to set anything on quietHDD's first install.
Both AAM and APM default to 255

 

i think i'll just not do anything... i'll keep the default settings and not use quietHDD... only if it makes a lot of noise , then i'll use it. Anyways , XGX , could u link me to a thread with the mod or give me some idea about how to do it.. I'm not a very technical person so i don't know how to do it. I only know how to remove HDD but in which parts do i put the mesh etc?

 

Oh, I don't think there is a forum post or link for this mod. He just got the idea in his head on how he was going to do it, then got some of the hard plastic mesh off of some old laptop component covers, cut the hole in his original, then got a soldering gun with no solder, melted the edges of the plastic mesh to the inside part of the bay cover and put it back on. Of course it looks ghetto but it works. I wouldn't have even seen it had he not told me about it and showed it to me, because it's always either on his desk or on the desk at school.... nobody ever see's the bottom..lol

 

it's an idea of a breathing hole(s)..
my hdd cover already have holes

 

Another option would be to drill a bunch of 1/4" holes about 1/4" apart in the drive bay cover instead of cutting a larger hole and attaching the mesh. That would have about the same affect.

 

I had once this problem and I switched the HDD to another free bay and it runs much cooler , if you have a free bay try it it may work

 

My cover already already has vents/holes...

No, i only have 1 hard drive bay...

I saw how you do the mod but it a little too complicated for me. Look like i'll just bear with the temps...

 

These are idle temps though correct? I mean there could be a background process constantly reading/writing very small amounts of data, causing it to never "rest"...

 

in my inspiron heat never goes above 39 degrees on a 160gb 5400rpm hdd. I noticed the other day in BIOS theres hdd settings for quiet,performance etc, don't know if that will be any help to you or not

 

HP notebooks don't have that unfortunately. Alternatively quietHDD does the same thing (tuning AAM & APM), but it really doesn't help with heat all that much.

 

i have a similar toshiba drive which is right next to my gpu which runs at like 60 degrees idle and the hard drive runs at about 35 degrees and even in the summer it is only around 40.

can you feel the heat because if oyu can it could just be an inaccurate reading, what program do you use to monitor temps.

 

Inaccurate temps are out of question... i'm using CPUID hardware monitor...