Games vitually unplayable due to HD heat. (8662)

I know that there are many threads that mention the heat issue with the hard drives in the NP8662, but few offer and solutions. I have searched but it doesn't seem like many people have this big of a issue.

My problem is this, I can barely play any games on my new 8662, which lets face it is the reason I bought it in the first place. The games run smoothly and beautifully, but after 45min to one hour my hard drive heat causes me to have to shut down and wait for awhile before attempting to play anything again. I just got done playing FarCry 2 for a hour or so and I hit 59 degrees, I decided to shut down before I got the critical message from Vista. Playing Dawn of War 2 easily put me up to 60 earlier today though.

This can't be normal, the Intel Matrix Storage manager tells me the HD is functioning properly, there is no errors when I search for bad sectors, I am using the notebook on a flat, clean, surface with a NZXT Cryo LX cooler which is very high quality, and my room is neither cold nor hot so that isn't the problem, and he fans, ports, etc all openings are clean as a whistle and have plenty of breathing room.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions they would be greatly appreciated.

 

its not the HDD that would be the problem.

its probably the GPU or the CPU.

have you been monitoring those temps?... which are the most important in a gaming system.

refer to this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81852

and the NBR Cooling Central

 

If the HDD gets that hot, the situation for the other components must be worse... What are your temps like?

 

I also got a 8662.
Just tried about 2 hours or so of Crysis and my max HD temp was 55C.

My other max temps are
CPU Core 1: 73
CPU Core 2: 69
GPU: 84

My CPU temps went up to 78 before playing l4d but I had the Arctic Silver 5 paste changed and the temps are improving a bit everyday.

EDIT: I have seen people get their HD temps up to nearly 70C and I dont think they were too worried about it actually.

 

65c for hd is the critical temp. where prolonged use will cause HD failure or damage. 70c is wayyyyy too high.

 

Actually all my other temps are very low, my GPU hasn't even gone over 65 yet. My CPU has never gotten high either, I have my notebook cooler cranked to max when I play games and it keeps me maybe about 30-40 degrees above regular idle temperature and I'm idling with everything in the 30's range. I have checked the cooling central, but it doesn't seem like there is much you can do about the HD when it doesn't even have any vents.

 

You could do some drilling, lol. I saw a mod or two where people did that and it dramatically decreased hdd temps.

 

Really? Would you happen to have the links to those mods?

 

have you loaded and run HD Tune yet. get it HERE

 

Yes, but isn't that just for benchmarking?

 

it will show if there is any errors with your HD

 

lol I remember playing GTAIV with the windows open this winter, the CPU and GPU were at about 45C but my HD was still reaching 62C not much we can do about it. Anyway 7200rpm are rated 60C max operating temperature so you are about fine, just backup your important data and avoid using this HD more than 2years and you will be just fine

 

I scanned for errors and all sectors were green although the HD temp reached 62 and all HDtune flashed the temperature red.

I made a shadow copy last night and I will backup frequently, I just hate living in fear of frying my HD. But if even the winter wind doesn't keep these HD's cool I don't think anything will.

 

Is this normal for the 8862 or is there possible something wrong with your unit? Would warranty cover unusual high temps or only if the HD failed?

 

That should not be a solution, just say oh well whatever. I think you should tell your reseller about it and try to get your unit replaced. Those temps are too high and even without a cooler and on battery the hard drive shouldn't run that hot.

 

I see you have the 320gb 7200rpm HDD, would the Intel X-25M 80gb SSD have any of those same temp issues?? I am really wanting to purchase mine soon, but dont want to get the 7200 or 5400rpm HDD's if they are gonna bake in the rig ya know?

 

I seriously doubt they would replace a unit for that, plus beside GTAIV it stays in the spec range

even if the SSD run hot (it should not) they have a much wider range of operation, 0C to 70C for the X-25M so I strongly doubt that you would have issue, although you might wanna check the new OCZ vertex I think it offers a good bang for the buck

 

Hmm that really sucks if its getting that high, maybe loosen the hard drive cover a bit (i dont have one of these machines but will try my best to assist)

Hard drives need minimal air to function correctly (thats why they have a mini do not cover hole on)

So im just wondering if its sufficating in that kind of sense and maybe loosening the cover a bit will help (not the hd casing itself but the plastic cover)

As for your games, i'd suggest a memory stick for now, i know its stupid but the less of that HD you use the better.

If you are thinking about swapping out, may i suggest the 7200 RPM Scorpio Series? The operating temps are suppost to be brilliant.

 

what program are you guys using to monitor HD, cpu,gpu temps?

 

HWmonitor is the best bet , just google it .

 

I also wondering if there's any mod can cool down the HDD a little bit. The 7K320 on my 5793 is idling at 49C.

 

I'd talk to K-Tron, he did it to his laptop,but this also voids your warranty if you're not certified.

Also, have you tried undervolting?

 

Are you running the hard drive in ahci mode (os: vista in bios) and if so do you have the latest version of intel matrix storage manager installed?

AHCI mode can be run on xp even though you have to select vista in the bios, you just have to have the sata drivers on a floppy or slipstreamed during the os install.

 

This is supposedly normal, some people are higher some people are lower. But this problem has been around for awhile, since the 8660 from what I know. I have talked to my reseller and the heat was supposed to be fixed in the 8662 but it obviously isn't, I will be contacting XoticPC first thing Monday morning, but I believe it will only be covered if the HD actually fails. But we'll see!

I really believe it is just suffocating (for a lack of a better word) I mean there is absolutely no airflow to the HD and the cooling system seems to have no effect on it. I know this because I have a nice cooler blowing cool air right into the cooling system, my entire computer is actually cool to the touch but the palm rest area where the HD is located is very warm. I will definitely be considering swapping this HD for a cooler running one or nice SSD. Thanks for the suggestion.

I really hope we can find something! Otherwise other threads will pop up or people will continue to seek a answer. I hope we can figure something out in this thread! I will keep searching for something to do to fix this issue and I will definitely be posting my findings.

I will PM him after I talk to XoticPC and see what they say, thank you. As for undervolting I would be too scared to do that to my hard drive, I might do it after reading a few success stories but not until then.

How can I tell what mode the drive is in? Just go into the BIOS? Yes I have the latest version of that, it came preinstalled but I went to the Intel website and updated it myself just to be sure.

 

Does Vista have an indexing service like XP that could be causing temp problems? If so, have you tried disabling it?

 

Yes it does, and yes they are all disabled.

 

shoot.. now i am scared.. i was thinking about getting 8662 but those are some high temperature.. if all 8662 have similar problem, i will just give up
on mobility and get 9280 instead.. i hope i7 doesn't blow up the unit on that
one. =(

 

there is very rare heating issues with the M860TU.... since its release.

only a few people experience the HDD heat issue, which can be resolved by updating the SATA drivers and disabling HDD accessing services in Windows.

 

Even with doing all that I am still having the issues.

 

Hmm, when you go to my computer and right click your c drive, hit properties, go to hardware, and go to the properties for your hard drive, then uncheck write catching and advanced performance if there checked, we will try make your HD as cool and low running as we can .

 

Thanks, that dropped my temps a good bit. I feel no difference in the everyday performance of the drive. However, what disadvantages are there to disabling these things?

 

I'll try those, how big of a performance loss with the HD am I to expect though?

 

Not alot, prehaps a bit less sharper response time, but i believe that should be fine as your Sagers a pretty nice beast Aslong as you have available ram and your Pagefile isn't crazy full, that should help you out.

Its ashame though that we have to loose some little performance for cooling.

I will keep looking into more tweaks.

It is 7200 right? i use 5400 RPM and thats quite fast so with your performance stripped for the hard drive, that should still run fast

 

Great, I really appreciate your help, this didn't 100% solve the problem, but it does run about 3-6 degrees cooler on average.

 

Hehe, its a start atleast

Wonder if its possible to down the the amount of RPM on Hard drives, altho that is quite a silly idea.

 

SSD's dont produce nearly the same amount of heat

 

I definitely plan to pick up a SSD when the price/capacity is right.

 

The scorpio drive 500 gb 5400rpm one is very cool and nearly as fast as the 7200 too, so its worth looking into

 

Just got my 8662 the other day and have the Seagate 320 7200. I am getting temps of 54c at idle. All indexing services and options are turned off and I'm running Windows 7 x64.

The right side of the palm rest is noticeably warm to the touch. Nothing severe, but you can tell.

All temps:

ACPI - 46c
CPU - 29c
GPU - 43c
HDD - 54c

I havent really even gamed on the machine as I got it and then came down with the flu. Right now I'm running the HDTune application to benchmark the HDD and see how hot I can get it.

There has to be something that can be done in order to bring these temps down.

 

Im just thinking that the plates need loosenting really, or drill a whole in the plastic compartment.

 

There has to be some reason behind this heat, I have never seen a notebook where the hard drive is the hottest component 90% of the time. But when I contacted XoticPC they just put me off to Sager saying this is perfectly normal and is not a problem.

 

60 is peak, anything hotter is not normal to be honest, and you have problems with it so theres something wrong.

Download hd tune and run error check (its not just a benchmark), this is quite hard to figure out.

 

in such a small environment for the fast 7200rpm HDD, the temp is normal.

if the HDD had some airflow or more passive cooling or have a larger open area around it, then the temps would be better.

I have been devising a plan to mod a small fan in the system to give some airflow around the HDD area... but its pretty difficult since there is so little room around it to do so.

The only easy ways to:
- get airflow for the HDD, is to use a notebook cooler that can blast air through the vents (preferably a modded vent right on the panel in the area of the HDD)
- get the temps down be adding passive coolers to the HDD assembly itself

 

Agreed, the HDD is pretty stuck in there from what i hear, how are you planning on modding the small fan? and how small is it?

This is something i've been looking into with a 10mm fan, problem is i dont even know how to power it with external sources (3 pin).

Cheers
Cata

 

on the motherboard, one can solder a USB Hub board to power the fan which should not use more than 5V.

... or just intercept one of the external USB ports (making it not available) to power the extra internal fan.

the size of the fan is the tricky part.... not too many that I like for such a small size.

I was trying to see if I can get a 30mm x 7mm fan (like this one) in there.

Mounted to the panel (not directly next the HDD are because there is little space there, but) next to the vents adjacent to it (near the chipset heatsink).

then one can mod a small duct on the fan to direct the air to the HDD.

 

Aha, that is perfect, thanks .
Yeah, the fan i have i think is around 60mm x 10mm (rather then 7 i crazily said), from an old 5600fx card (the fan still works perfectly) i have been wanting to mount it within the system for additional cooling, and modding it to the USB board seems perfect.

A couple of small holes into the HDD panel should clear that problem, unless a big chunk of the HDD wall is taken out to put a heatsink grill in.

 

I think my only solution would be to buy one of those Scorpio Blue HD's that I hear so much about or wait for a large enough/cheap enough SSD, as I know the second I take a drill to my notebook case I will destroy it.

 

people have been buying extra bottom panels, so that they can mod them... while still having a stock one just in case if they want to use it or send it back in when they are in need of an RMA or somehting.

 

I am having the same issue as you. I just received my NP8662 and HD temperatures goes up to 62C....... not sure if that is what is causing my fingerprint reader to heat up too.....

I wonder if there is any HD passive cooling available..... 'cause even the Cryo LX does not help in lowering the HD temperature.

Keep us posted on your HD cooling mod. I am still leaning toward returning my laptop due to this heating issue.

By the way, I have the 250GB 5400rpm Fujitsu.

 

the CryoLX can help cool the HDD if you make a vent open on the panel in the area of the HDD.

a number of people have done it and it works fine ... especially with those that have a notebook cooler.