Discouraging temp?

My temperature for the HDD while websurfing with the NP8660 goes anywhere from 57-60C, but reaches 62 max when gaming. But, 57-60 for simple websurfing seems a little discouraging, considering that the manufacturer's website states that the operating temperature maximum is 55 C. Could it be a bum harddrive?

It's a Fujitsu MHZ2160BH, 160gb 5400 rpm harddrive.

Logically I will need a cooler to help with this heat. I ask, is the NC-1000 sufficient for this laptop? How about Vantec's lapcool2? I have searched and searched the web for results, and both look promising but I have seen no cooler results for the M860tu specifically, and I am wondering if anyone has any insight. Thanks for your help and patience.

EDIT: It is discouraging to me in light of the manufacturer's statements, and the fact that others with 7200rpm drivers run still slightly cooler.

 

What software are you using to monitor the HDD ?? And which OS ?

Check out HWMonitor, and Notebook Hardware Control.

See if you can lower the AAM value for the HDD in NHC and also view its smart data.

Download this and run a comprehensive scan.

 

I thought the 7200rpm ones are hotter not cooler...

 

Comparing from several users, the temps of the hard drive seems to be random, no matter if its 5400rmp or 7200rmp.

 

I am using HWMonitor, Win Xp Pro, the SMART data is fine, and I am going to tinker with the NHC.

But almost none of them, save for one which was declared "bad/mulfunctioning" seemed to idle in temperatures as high as this one.

 

I believe someone mentioned that the hdd is sitting right next to the northbridge or something like that. Theres just no way everyone is getting a hdd thats shipped malfunctioning. The hdd that was put in the cage in my laptop ran at 55c and I thought that was to hot, moved it to the hdd slot under the battery and it never goes above 35c. Even the hdd in my old 5793's ran 40-50c. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a revision of the laptop in works.

 

Disable Indexing, and does the area around the drive get hot/warm ??

 

Indexing was already disabled. Playing with AAM did not do much. I lowered it.

The thing is, NHC, Speedfan, and HDtune are all screaming "oh noes, the hdd is over 55C". This worries me the most because no one else has mentioned any of these programs giving them this much flak. I figure everyone else is fine, just a little toasty.

EDIT: Passed short test, I'll see about the long test in the morning. Thank you for your input.

 

I'm running a 320 gig 7200 rpm,
HWMonitor is eading at 58 C.
Speedfan says 58 C also.
all other temps are fine.

Earlier I put a temp Gage on the palm rest above the hdd, to see the external heat, the temp rose to 46 C, and though that might not be that high, when your palm is resting there for more than 10 minutes, it's starts getting real irritating, Personally I think they put the hdd in the wrong spot.

 

How much more prone to failure are HDDs that operate for most of their lives at or just above the upper limit of their operating temperature ranges? The cooling of the notebook in general seems fine except for more than just a few isolated HDDs.

If such environmental conditions substantially reduce the stability of my precious (LOTR-style precious) data I am not so sure I'd be inclined to keep this notebook (even though mine will not even be here until Tuesday).

 

Meh, personally hard drives are cheap. As long as a hard drive will last 2 years at high temperatures, i could care less if it melts in 2 years. By that time, hard drives will be even cheaper and i will just buy a new one.

 

The reason it is getting hot is because there isn't any ventilation behind the HDD. Hard drive sometimes comes with 3 or 5 years manufacture warranty.

 

It isn't about the life decreasing (or at least that isn't my primary concern)... it's about losing important data (um, a thesis? -- not that I won't be backing up, but still) at any point in time. I want and need stability.

A quick and certainly not too thorough search of NBR.com came up with one opinion stating that operating an internal HDD at the upper bound of the heat limits can cut the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) in half.

It certainly isn't a good thing.

 

So you don’t believe having hard drive temps that high, will not affect the life of some other system components?

 

Passed the extended test, but I'm pretty the new all time record temp of 65 C doesn't help.

 

Maybe once I get my NP8660 I should cut a hole below the HDD to release some heat. Any good cutting tool you guys recommand me to use? I noticed the under cover is made of some sort of metal probably alluminum.

 

I was just running othlos, my hdd got up to 64 C, i shut othlos off, and y computer vwas running extremely slow, so I did a reboot, It took a few minutes to shut down, and when it started up again, my hdd temp continued to rise, up to 66 C, I left the comp alone for about 10 minutes, and it went down to 62 C, I started typing this and now it is at 60 C.

Heres your screenshot.

 

What the [fudge] is going on with these hot HDDs?

As noted earlier, a revision will probably happen at some point. But, how long did it take for a revision of the M570RU to happen? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. However, I suspect it will take Clevo at least a few months to finalize and begin to manufacture a revision (if one is already in the works, longer if not).

If you want a 15.4" notebook of this caliber before the end of the year, it's either this version of the M860TU, the (dreaded) _m15x, or (possibly) VooDoo's rumored 15.4" powerhouse that is supposed to debut at the end of the month (and probably not ship until October or November).

I really hope these HDD issues are still just flukes or can be alleviated by modulating the fan speed stacked with an apt notebook cooler.

 

If the hard drive fails, they pay. I will try to keep an updated backup to be safe.

 

Right, I was thinking that perhaps the most important files for a college student like me would be simple text files, and those could be backed up pretty easily with flash drives and external harddrives.

As for a cooler, has anybody tried any coolers on this thing? Just wondering.

 

It was this post that mentioned the southbridge:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=288284

Does anyone know where the heat sensor is located? I don't think it's actually on the hard drive. Maybe Donald or Justin could tell us?

If the sensor is also reading the temperature from the surrounding area, it may be why the temperature is high. But if the hard drive actually ran cool but the overall area temperature is high, would that still affect the hard drive?

 

Actually I think the heat sensor for the hard drive is on the hard drive. This is really just a guess on my part... But my current desktop computer that I built myself reports the temp of my Raptor HD just fine. And I did not wire up any additional heat sensors. That and some of the temps posted for the OCZ SSD(s) in a m860Tu show a reading of 0C which tells me that they're either working in Alaska or the OCZ SSD is not reporting an accurate temp.

Your probably right about the Hard drive being affected by the surrounding components... But, those components are probably similar across multiple 860TU(s). It could be a variance in hard drives themselves, but even then I've seen 2 different people post their HD temps with difference of 6-8 degrees, and both images show a HD using the ST9320421AS, which is a 7200RPM, 320GB Seagate HD. So if its not completely a variance in HD, nor in the surrounding components, then what else could it be?

I can think of a couple of other components that might be adding heat.
RAM, CPU, GPU. The RAM and GPU are the closer to the HD than the CPU. So probably have a greater affect. I didn't make note of any huge differences in GPU temp across the posting I've seen. And RAM temps aren't reported.

Now, some people might think, RAM? how much heat could RAM generate? And I think of the MAC PRO and how they have HUGE heat sinks on the RAM modules. And I mean big, they're like 5-6 times thicker than the ram module itself. From what I recall Apple did this for one reason, to lower overall temps in the system. And for the most part it works, my MAC PRO almost never turns a fan on to a high setting. Other than the CPUs its almost completely heat sink cooled.

This is just my guess, but does anyone know of someone selling heat sinks for Laptop RAM? So that I can test it when my 860Tu comes in?

 

I called sager and it seems like the recent seagate hd's the 320 7200 rpms run a bit hotter then normal since in my 5793 my hd was running at 45, and in the 96 its running at 55-57 on load. They told me that for the seagate 50-60 was a perfectly safe temp, and then i followed up and checked oni the manufacturer's website and it seemed like it was allright.

 

What about 66?

 

yea... i get 64 on load, 57-60 on light web browsing.,.. this worries me

 

What drives do you guys have? I have a 200GB 7200RPM Toshiba MK2049GSY and I get 60 after running HDTune.

 

I've got 320GB @ 7,200 RPM, Not sure brand, I'm @ 57 C and just lightly surning the web.

 

I got the Hitachi 320 7200 in mine and have not got over 57c with it.

 

So, the NC-1000 cools the HDD temperature from 58 while websurfing to 50-51 for me. I suppose it is a viable solution.

I also sat while holding this window fan in my lap in front of the laptop while sitting in a desk just for kicks. It managed to cool the HDD by 10+ degrees, even when under load.

I have no idea how ridiculous it must've looked though. Also, the vibrations got tiring.