Clevo M860TU Hard Disc Temperature under Win7

Hi guys,

I'm still using my 4 year old Clevo Laptop and it's still perfoming awesome. Back in the day I got some help from some guys over here regarding some high temperature values I was getting including the one on my HDD.We got this fixed by doing some twaking on Windows Vista and installing the Intel Matrix Storage Software (which install the SATA driver aswell?).

We have summer at the moment and I'm using Windows 7 now. I have been experiencing some system lockups with sound stutter (see Image) during the past week.

Image: http://i49.tinypic.com/14doyyo.jpg

First I thought there was a conflict with VGA Drivers/Temps and the game I have been playing 80% of the time (League of Legends) because hey an odd pattern on the screen makes me directly think of a VGA problem. After monitoring my temps I noticed that it's the HDD thats going insane high: 77°C!! While the VGA stays at 69°C.

I was monitoring the temps today and from startup (37°C) it went to about 65°C during the course of 1 game (~20min). Now that I'm writing this and doing nothing else it's stable at around 63-65°C. Yesterday however my PC was on for about 6hrs and the moment I had the idea to check the whole system temps (not just VGA with GPU-Z) it was at 77°C!

I got the latest Intel Matrix Storage Software/Driver for Win7 (from Intel website) installed which as far as I know includes the SATA drivers. The Chipset aswell directly updated from Intel website.

My only guess atm is that the HDD is spinning 24/7 and going into overdrive when gaming and thus generating extreme heat.

The Laptop itself is a bit old but it has to last half to 1 year till I'm done with University.

any Ideas would be greatly apreciated.

~Onne

 

hi mate
good old faitfull m860tu. your the second owner in a week to have problems but the other was his graphics card.

it might well have been me help you out ages ago yeh im still here

the intel matrix would bring my WD down by a good 3-4c which is a massive difference. mine used to stay at a average 48-51c all the time except when a defrag in the background or a virus scan was running then it would go upto a max of 61c which made me sweat a bit so yours is wayyyyy over the mark of being safe as far as i can remember the threshold temp is 65c

first thing to check is you havnt got a defrag continuously going on in the background.
also when was the last time you cleaned the vents and fans out as dust build up raises temps but then i would of thought cpu/gpu would be high as well.

im at work at mo and of top of my head cant think of anything more to suggest.
hopefully someone else will come up with things to try.

 

I do clean the vents regulary, last time was like 2-3months ago. I just cleaned everything just to be sure (not much dust was inside). The Defrag (defragsvc) service is marked as "stopped", so is Volume an Shadow copies (VSS) service.

 

I do not trust the software testing too much. Some results may be varied because the position you place the notebook. If you place it on a cooler table or do you have anything blocking the vents? Sometime, the software is confused so it give a higher tempature on one section. I would recommend to test it about 5 times and use the average.

By the way, the fans running on your laptop are 4-year-old. You need to make sure they are all clean (I do know you try to clean the laptops), but the fans are very difficult to reach.

 

I did open the laptop and used a vacuum cleaner to remove all the dust that was inside the heatsink. The Fan itself has some screwes, so I took it out and cleaned it with a brush.

I found the screen from 4years ago with my previous issue, note the HDD temp: http://i45.tinypic.com/34hckug.jpg
The VGA problem was ofc fixed. This timer around its the HDD that is giving high temps: http://i49.tinypic.com/35kn03p.jpg

Oh and already back then someone told me that my HDD temp was sorta high and told me how to lower the temps by doing some tweaks in Windows but I can find that post :S

 

Okay, I'm testing with a Western Digital HDD atm. I just formatted my Laptop and I'm reinstalling everything. I'm downloading program's atm and the HDD is running at 64°C. I'll run some games soon and see if under League of Legends I reach the critical point of 77°C and make my PC crash.

 

64c is still way too hot.

also i think i found the page with tips you was looking for. one or all of these >

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/292702-m860tu-np8660-easy-ways-keep-hdd-cooler.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/microsoft-windows-xp-vista/166532-nbr-vista-tips-tweaks-guide.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/395052-how-lower-your-hard-drive-temperature.html

 

Thanks for the quick response. Ill definitely take a look at everything.

Another question although bit contradictory. Is there s a way that the HDD is getting to much power /voltage thus overheating it. I know this is true for electronic components. But a HDD is to me a "mechanical unit" and to my knowledge heat in it is created by friction rather than over voltage in its (few) electronic components.

I'm really clueless how 2 different HDD's are "suddenly" getting into the 70°C range while 4yrs ago the HDD was running at 55°C under Vista. I wouldn't have noticed this overheating issue if my PC would have been crashing since about start August and well my 2nd option is that the sensor is wrong and that there is something completely different causing my PC to crash. Although so far it seems that it happens when the HDD reaches 77°C while in a game. Outside of the game it behaves completely normal.

 

i have no idea mate but one question though, are you using the original psu power brick or bought another one. this is the only thing i can think that would give a different voltage. of course the other would be overclocking but i know nothing about that as well

 

Oooooooooookay I disabled the Windows Indexing Service and unchecked the "Index this Drive" by rightclicking on the Hard Drive icon on "My Computer". I just played some games and the temp of the Hard Disc didn't rise above 68°C compared to the 77°C I did get before. I guess I'm heading into a good direction.4

It's still high but if my theory is correct I wont experience crashes until the 77°C mark. Now I have to see what else I can tweak to make it drop a bit further maybe I manage to get it down to 60-65°C and I guess im just barely in the safe zone.

I followed following checklist, and only the indexing service was running, the rest are on stopped and manual under Windows 7.

 

have you tried the sitting in the fridge trick.
this is guaranteed to work but whatever you do you must keep moving or your tackle could drop off

 

you are funny Sir.
I'll give the Advanced Power Mode and Automatic Acoustic level Management a try next and report back.

 

Okay so I'm ruling out that the crash is happening by the Hard Disc overheating. Yes it is reaching the 75°C mark but I have managed to drop it to 68°C with Windows Tweaks (see my previous post) and another 20°C, down to 45°C by opening the cover and putting a fan right beneath it. It still crashed and pretty much random. Note that I tried with 2 different HDD and both experienced about the same temps. I just ran a HDD check with the Fujitsu HD manager in DOS and it passed, so I guess no damage on the HDD aswell. Yesterday I even experienced a crash with the pattern I showed in my original post by loading a video from metacafe about laptop cooling methods. Something that so far only happened in League of Legends.

I will end this thread here, and make a new one with a more general title maybe someone can help me Isolated my problem, but by the looks of it its something HDD unrelated.

Thanks everyone who contribute.

~Onne