Resolved hard drive overheating

honestly i dont think ive ever seen a hard drive overheat before. am using a program called spinrite on the drive and the program is telling me its overheating.

so my question is it just better to trash this hard drive and get a new one???

 

pete c

this is a dell 4600 and the fan it has is spinning just fine. the drive is warm to the touch but not anything i would consider hot by no means. not room inside the box to put another case fan unfortunately.

spinrite fixed the drive problem like it does quite a lot. love spinrite works most times as long as the drive isnt clicking.

the web site you gave me i am unable to open it not sure why my security is set okay but ie wont open the site.

you might be getting a personal message from me on another subject. someone is playing games with me and i need to know if they can do what they are telling me they are doing.

thanks pete.

 

Quite a lot??? I agree that Spin Rite has long history of being an excellent drive utility, but if you have to use it on a drive more than once, serious red flags are waving telling you that drive is fixing to fail for good.

Understand that Spin Rite (as well as chkdsk and defrag) are very tasking jobs, so it would make sense that the drive heats up. Drives are pretty robust, but not invulnerable to heat.

"The" fan, as in 1 fan? If there is only 1 fan in your case (excluding the PSU fan), then you probably do not have adequate front to back air flow. You should consider adding another fan. Many of the better cases today include support to mount a case fan behind the front panel that moves air across the drives.

If your case does not support more fans, perhaps it might support a larger fan, or you can replace the existing fan with one that pushes more air (CFM). Additionally, if using any flat ribbon drive cables, I recommend replacing them with round cables. And definitely ensure the case's vents and interior are clean of heat trapping dust.

Short of that, remove the side panel and blast a desk fan in there while performing these extreme disk tasking jobs.

 

Hi,

Again, there is am invaluable, warpspeed SMART tab option in Speedfan---a freeware---which, when chosen will access an online diagnostics database in under a second, give you most of the data you will need about the specifics of the drive....including the temp it is running at, the range of normal temps for that individual drive.

While drive Mfg diagnostics are excellent, they also take way longer but are sometimes necessary in following up should the Spoeedfan diagnostics offer upsetting details about the drive:
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/SpeedFan.shtml
And I agree, thermal engineering is a huge factor in computer design. Also why I get used Optiplexes for my desktops and only the biggest configuration.

Also why when I can, I use a coolng pad---aluminum---under my Alienware Sentia lappy. People are into increasingly smaller and paper thin. There is a price to be paid for this given heat is the ultimate enemy of our systems.

Good luck, and Happy Holiday!

 

sorry never got notified of the last couple respondes. drive was just bad new drive and temp is fine. call can be closed. thanks to all.