HP Technical Support Experience Regarding HDD High Temperature Issue

Seeing the number of recent threads regarding hardware temp, I thought I share my call last night to HP for a similar issue.

I bought a 14.1in dv2815nr notebook from Best Buy about 6 weeks ago and while everything else seemed normal, I noticed the HDD (which is right under the left palm rest) was running pretty hot. I downloaded HD Tune and sure enough, my HDD was running hot. It idles between 46-48c and If I'm just browsing or using Word, it neve gets higher than that. However, if I do anything that constantly reads from the HDD like downloading torrents or running a disk defrag it goes well past 50c. I can't even run a full virus scan because It'll reach the 55c critical safe temp at only 40% complete.

Anyway, when I told the technical support person he agreed that the HDD was running hotter than it should and suggested that I send my PC in for repairs. Not a chance. I've read too many horror stories from people on this site about repair service, particularly getting their notebooks back with scratches from inproper handling or waiting months. So I told the HP guy that I'd rather they send me a new drive. At first, he said that I needed to send my PC because it could be bad wiring between the motherboard and HDD. But after I *****ed a little (in a nice way) about how I'm sure this is a faulty HDD and that I can't be without my PC for too long, they gave in and are sending me a new drive.

Honestly, I don't know if this will solve the problem. After all, my current HDD has no bad sectors and seem pretty healthy. The only thing I noticed through HD Tune that was out of the ordinary was that my G-Sense Error Rate fell to 99 from 100 the last time my HDD spiked to 53c. Hasn't gotten any worse since (been about a week).

My concern is that this may be a design issue. If so, then all HDDs will run hot on dv2800 series notebooks. I really hope this is not the case since I consider not being able to run a simple virus scan because of potential HDD overheating issues an major defect in the hardware.

But like I said, HP did what I asked so now it's just wait and see. Got my fingers crossed.

BTW, I have a Samsung HM250JI HDD:
Idle temp: 46-48c
At load (watching videos/running disk defrag): 52c+
Highest temperature reached: 56c (at which point I got the SMART beep notifying me that I've exceed the 55c max safe temp level).

Anyway, I'm wondering if anybody with the same drive experienced similar high temperature problems and had to get their HDD replaced. If so did this solve the problem? Any feedback would be much appreciated.

 

I have a 14.1 in dv2412ca my HDD is also under my left palm. I never really check the temperature, but i can feel that it gets pretty hot if i watch a movie and it gets even hotter if I run a scan. Occasionally, I also get that "beep" sound.
I'm using a fan cooling pad but it helps a little. But now my laptop is sent back for repair (no display and won't boot), should be the nvidia card....
But back to the topic, I think it's the design of the laptop. So getting a new HDD probably won't fix the issue.

 

From my experience, a new hard drive is not going to fix your problem. I just sent in my dv2500cto for repair after three 250GB hard drives failed in it within weeks of each other. My hard drives all failed because of heat related issues since S.M.A.R.T reported that they were all running too hot. It is a design flaw, and with the graphics chip being in the vicinity as well, the heat has no where to go. The replacement hard drive might seem like a fix for a day or two or maybe even a month, but after a while you will feel it all over again, and hd pro will give you the same info as right now then.

 

That really sucks. I'm still going to replace the drive but if it has the same issue then I may just keep my old one.

kot, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason your PC wouldn't boot was because your HDD was toast. Especially if you've exceeded your safe temperature level several times as the beeps indicate.

 

A case manager call me last week and it's the motherboard (+ the part is back-ordered for he doesn't know how long...) I guess it's the nvidia card, since it will boot 1 out 8-10 tries and sometimes it boots without display.