sudden jump in HD temperature

Machine: HP dv2700t, vista business 32 bit.

My hard drive (Toshiba, 250gb) used to run at about 38, 39c. In the past day or two, it's been idling at 55c or so. I have not made any major changes to my computer.

Is there anything that could possibly warrant this temperature rise? It still sounds normal and is not being more active than before. It simply is running much hotter (and is hot to touch).

 

Do you by chance have antivirus scheduled to run, cause that would cause the harddrive temperatures to increase significantly.
The weather, has also been really hot in areas, so that may be contributing to the additional harddrive temperature.
If you are worried about the disc temperature, try shutting off background processes, and that will help decrease the use of the drive.
To do this, go to the start Orb,
than go to the run command,
than type in msconfig
Than go to the startup, and services tabs, and shut off all apps, services, and such which you are not using.
That will help free up system resources and increase system performance

If the cpu is located near the harddrive, than that could also be making the harddrive run hotter.
Check out undervolting, and try doing that, it can help decrease the thermal load of your processor, keeping the temperatures down, and thus less heat will transfer through radiation to the harddrive. (that is if the harddrive is located near the cpu)

K-TRON

 

It could also be Vista indexing service that causes a lot of hard drive activity.

Another option would be that you've made a change to the surface on which the laptop is standing, or lost a little rubber foot, causing bad ventilation underneath the laptop.

 

To OP consider what K-T and Phil said. But your post indicates what they suggest is not happening.

Is CPU temp same as before? I ask because if hotter (much) would consider failure in cooling system (fan). Does not sound like build up of dust and such if it came on suddenly.

55C is way to hot at idle. It is the very upper end of safe operating range. If HDD was to become very active I would expect it to go well above safe operating temperatures.

Sadly if no explanation can be found could be mechanical problem with HDD that could very likely lead to premature failure.

 

Thanks for the responses.

My laptop is where it has always sat. The processor is undervolted heavily, and the processor temps are normal. I have had indexing and auto-defrag turned off; I've temporarily turning off superfetch and readyboost, just in case those are doing something (I doubt it, but I'm trying it anyway). I have nothing but basic processes running (my machine starts up with 34 processes), and nothing has changed.

The only thing that has happened is that I reformatted about a week ago. But the hard drive was fine for a few days after that. The computer itself is only a few weeks old.

What I find bizarre is that none of these things should really affect HD temp this heavily. What could possibly warrant a 60% increase in temperature? I have not dropped or mishandled it (I suppose someone else may have). Is there some sort of physical damage that would unbalance the HD? It sounds completely normal and is not experiencing slowdowns or anything.

 

Well, how long has the system been on for?
If you have a harddrive just sitting their for say an hour, its temperature may be 38C, but say in 2 more hours, it may be 48C. The drive will continue to generate heat as long as it is rotating. So if the system was sitting their running for a few hours, that could explain the high harddrive temperatures.
Shut the system off and let it cool for a few hours, and than power it up and see what the temperatures of the drive are then, under your normal use.

K-TRON

 

Have you checked your SMART info? That can in some cases show problem but if it does not show a problem in no way does that mean there is not one.

How hot does HDD get when in use? Not at idle and with HDD active would be nice to know.

I assume turning undervolting on and off is simple? Turn it off and check temps. It is a major stretch but free and couldn't hurt. Undervolting lowers CPU temp likely reducing the active component of the systems thermal solution is that having a negative affect on HDD. As I said big stretch but certainly worth a try.

I do not see an obvious answer with the information given. Posting in the HP forum to try and confirm the normal temp range of your model with similar components would be useful for comparative purposes to try and determine the extent of the problem.

 

My HD is at about 37, 38c within 5 minutes. After a bit (half an hour or so) it's up to 50c. Under stress, it hits low 60s.

Everything I've run says my hard drive is healthy.

I'm just not going to think about it. If it dies then it dies. Thanks all for your help.

 

That's not the NBR go getter attitude we have around here! Contact HP. Check your HDD most are 55C a few 60C. Let them know your HDD is running out of specs. Then don't worry about it. But do post in HP and see if others suffer the same.

 

If you download hdtune, and go into the options, you can set an alerter to come on when a certin temperature is reached. I would have it come on at about 65C, you really dont want the drive to be running hotter than that, cause it will burn out, and you really dont want that.

K-TRON