7200RPM drive overheat?

I upgraded my CF-48 to a 100 GB Seagate Momentus 7200-I, only because I couldn't find an Hitachi.
It's been in the laptop for about a week, and has started to shut down by itself after a couple of hours use. After rebooting it shuts down again in about 10 minutes.
I hung the bare drive below the computer, elevated above the desktop, and it runs OK.
Is this a faulty drive, or am I expecting too much of it to run in the toughbook drive caddy without excessive heat buildup?
Thanks for any and all help!
Peter.

 

Let me clarify, if you vent the bottom of the laptop it no longer turns off? I know that sometimes the hibernation times can get tricky. You may want to simulate the scenario and check what the temps of each component via speedfan/similar and see where they are. Usually the hdd shouldn't shutdown because of the hdd, I have known laptops to turn off due to proc over heat, nothing a little artic 5 cant handle. Good luck.

 

Does the BIOS have a setting for temperature? (I'm not familar with the 48)... Also.. You might try downloading Seagates feature tool and playing around with the setups for that. It is on Seagate's site I think.

Try that. Also try to find a freware HDD & CPU temp application. Most will minimize to the system tray. I use Everest 2007 all the time to keep an eye on my temps. It may be the CPU that is overheating and not the drive.

 

OK... you say it runs fine if you let the HD run outside the case... have you tried putting your old HD back in to see what happens? We want to verify that the HD is the culprit, not something else that may have changed in the last week. Hardware monitoring software as mentioned elsewhere is a good idea for this; it helps pinpoint the item that's actually over heating but it's possible that the additional heat of the new HD is enough to cause the CPU to overheat and that is what's causing your shutdown.

mnem
*Turns on the AC*

 

Yeah... What he said...

 

First of all, thanks for the feedback.

I've re-installed my old Toshiba 5400 drive. No other mods were done to the laptop ... the drive change was the only one.

The only Seagate program I could find is SeaTools, which appears to be purely diagnostic.

I've installed SpeedFan, which gives me 2 temps: One for the Toshiba hard drive (97F, which matches the temp reported by HDtune) and one for "Temp 1" at 143F. Would that be the CPU?

The Seagate drive that was giving problems would get up to about 107F, give a series of clicks, and stop running: the HDD light simply went out and the computer froze. I could reboot it, but it would only last a few minutes before it happened again. The Seagate runs fine hanging out the bottom of the laptop, or connected to a USB port. It still feels warm, but not HOT like it was when I removed it from the Toughbook.

Gengerald: What is the "little artic 5" you refer to? A better cooling fan?

The CPU is a Pentium M4 1.6. What temperature range is safe for this?
Also, what is max temp for a hard drive? The specs say operating range is from 5 to 55C (131F).

I've arranged to return the Seagate for a replacement. Thanks again, you guys, for the advice and help!

Peter.

 

Arctic 5 is a thermal conductive paste used to transfer heat from the CPU to the heat sink it attaches to. It is supposed to be "better" than the usual titanium oxide based thermal compound used by most OEMs as it contains microparticulate silver; however, my own personal tests over many years have revealed no statistically significant improvement EXCEPT in cases where one was using an inadequate cooling solution to begin with. In the case of most Toughbooks this product would not be recommended; as the MFR uses a fairly sophisticated arrangement of heatpipes to carry heat away from the CPU to the alloy housing of the computer, thus creating a fanless cooling solution. This setup is designed to include clearance for the thickness of the polymer heat transfer pads used in its normal construction; if you replace those pads with thermal paste you alter those clearances, resulting in improper heat transfer. Applying thermal compound of any sort to the existing thermal transfer pads is also not recommended, as there is no telling whether it will attack those pads and/or the heatpipes themselves.

As for the temp readings you are getting; if Temp1 is indeed the CPU, you are def running on the hot side of normal even into the danger area, especially if you've reinstalled the OEM HD and this is still happening. On a desktop where one has the luxury of extra space for cooling solutions, I prefer to keep CPU temp around 100-110 degrees max. However most laptops run pretty hot; my HP with 2GHZ AthlonX64 runs around 125 degrees under full load. I haven't tested my TB yet, though it seems much cooler overall than any of my other laptops.


mnem
Stay frosty, people...