[HOW TO] Lower your Hard Drive temperature

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There are many ways of lowering you hard drive temperatures. Some include moddings and adjustments to the stock heat dissipation system, such openings to give more ventilation, heat spreaders, external cooling, etc etc.

But there are other ways too, using software mods and tweaks. Disabling the indexer service on Windows systems is one of them. Some may lower slightly the performance of the hard drive, such power and noise control features. Those are implemented inside the firmware of the hard drive and can be adjusted. Features such as:

Power Mode (generally referred as Advanced Power Mode APM)

• This feature allows you to change the default power saving mode of the drive.
  
• APM is a technology that adaptively adjusts the power saving feature of hard disk drives to suit your working style. Power is saved by idling the actuator arm, additional power is saved by unloading the actuator arm and heads from the disk to the off-ramp. The technology actively adjusts the trade-off between disk delay and power consumption. This program allows you to change the aggressiveness of the power saving.

Acoustic Level (generally referred as Automatic Acoustic Management AAM)

• This feature allows you to change the default method for reducing acoustic emanations of the drive. The acoustic level of the drive can be modified to better suite the environment in which it is functioning.
  
• The drive performance may vary as the acoustic level changes with increased acoustic management. The acoustic management level of the drive can be changed from the lowest setting (Quite Seek Mode) to the maximum performance level (Normal Seek Mode).

So what we need to do if we want to adjust those values? We can use software applications on windows, or we can use outside OS DOS tools.

Software applications inside windows are easier to use. But there is a downside in this way, you need to re-enter those settings every time you came from a power off situation. With a DOS tool you can save those settings and the device will preserve the selected settings across all forms of reset, such as Power off on Hardware and Software.

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On the inside windows way, there is one easy and free application called HDDScan. With it you can change the APM and AAM states of your hard drive.

Download HDDScan:

Run HDDScan.exe. Click on Tasks -> Features -> IDE Features.



On the Automatic Acoustic Management corner, you can move the slider to adjust the aggressiveness of the acoustic management. Right to less aggressive, and left for more. I recommend a value of 128 for less heat.

Same with the Advanced Power Management, being 1 the recommended value.



Click Set to apply the values.

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On the DOS Tool way, one of the best that is constantly being actualized, is the Hitachi Feature Tool. With it you can change the APM and AAM states of your hard drive, and save them forever.

Download CD .iso image of Hitachi Feature Tool:

Burn that .iso to a blank CD/DVD. It already as a boot sector and DOS.

Remember to enter the BIOS menu to change the DVD-ROM drive to be the first on the boot list. Press F2, change it and then F10 to save and restart.

When the system boots, the Hitachi Feature Tool program will load automatically and present you with a License Agreement, which you must accept to proceed.

You will then be presented with the drive list screen as shown below. Click on Features with your touchpad.



Click on Change Acustic Level. You will then be presented with the next screen below. There you can move the slider to adjust the aggressiveness of the acoustic management. Right to less aggressive, and left for more. You can click on "test" to evaluate the change. Click OK to save the changes.



Click on Features again, and select Change Advanced Power Mode. You will then be presented with the next screen below. There you can move the slider to adjust the aggressiveness of the power management. Right to less aggressive, and left for more. Click OK to save the changes.



Finally, press Alt + X to exit. You can power cycle your system by pressing the power button for more than 3 secs and then press again to power on.

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To check the HDD temperatures, you can use the HDDScan and Feature Tool above, or the HWMonitor utility.

Download HWMonitor:

I hope that this little tutorial could be useful to help solving some HDD overheat issues

*if you found any spelling or technical error, please report it in this topic. Thanks!

 

Great! Thanks for your work!

 

+1 !

will this work on an np8662 (even though mine only peaks at 52C even when running a "free space erase")

 

nice dude

 

Anybody try it yet? If this works real well, Ima do
it to my 8662 as soon as I get it, just in case I have a unit where the HDD gets hot. I'm gonna do a lot of tweaks with vista that I have read
on here and also install that intel storage matrix or whatever it's called. Hopefully I don't have a unit with a hot HDD though. Would make life simpler.

 

Looks interesting, will try it out when I get home from work tonight.

In the meantime +1 rep for coming up with ideas for a solutions rather than creating another mindless thread to moan about it.

 

I have a Hitachi in my m860tu but I have to organize a project to review with a group for later so I'll have to do this another day. Looks promising though.

 

Real nice job! Just when I was wondering where the solution thread for this common problem would be.

 

what if i am not using Hitachi?

 

+1 Vote for this to be a sticky.

 

Or it don't work with Seagate Momentus 7200.4 or it don't work at all. No difference.

 

Don't do it if your temps are fine. Seriously, why bother?

 

Doesn't it decrease performance?

 

What do you guys think about this thing ? - http://www.7store.net/computer-networking-c1/2-fan-3.5-inch-hard-disk-drive-cooler-p252.html

 

very nice. i will have to try this.

thats for desktops.

 

I'm sure as with alot of Gateway FX owners, our hard drives run alot hotter than we'd like. I'll definitely be trying this solution out!

 

Let us know your results.

 

I tried the BIOS version and it sticks at Loading Hitachi Hard Disk Utility....

Any suggestions for this?

 

Nice job man!

Cata

 

anyone tried this on a non-hitachi drive? Particularly a Fujitsu HDD.

 

I've tried on Seagate. Nothing happened. Not cooler (idle\hard work) not slower (hd tune). All the same as it was before this tool.