Overheating hdd?

Markme · 29 Jan 2014

Greetings,

My pc is custom built. The mb, Ram, gpu and prossesor are about 3 weeks old. At the same time I added a internal SATA hdd I had lying around as my C drive due to the fact that my mb no longer has ide ports.

Right from day one I would start the pc but get no response from the monitor, it show its getting power and its plugged into the gpu because it doesn't show the "no connection" message. This wasn't really a problem because after pushing the power button a few times everything starts up properly.

The real problem is that after 2-3 hrs of being on (either idle or gaming) the pc would suddenly freeze. Nothing would happen until I forced shutdown by holding the power button. When opening the case I observed that the one hdd (my C drive) was very hot to the touch but my other internal was only slightly warm. I ran the windows memory diagnostic tool and it came up clean.

The cpu stays constant at 50degrees.

To me this sounds like my hdd is malfunctioning but I'm not sure.

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

OvenMaster · 29 Jan 2014

It sounds to me like you have three issues here.

If you have to keep pressing the power button to get the PC started, I would say your power supply is either dying or overloaded.

If the CPU stays constant at 50°c, is this at idle or under sustained load?

To get the temp of your hard drive, you need to run a program like SpeedFan or HWMonitor to access the hard drives' S.M.A.R.T. information which includes temperature readings.

Windows Memory Diagnostic tool tests RAM, not your hard drive.

Layback Bear · 29 Jan 2014

All I can tell you is I have never had a hard drive get hot. Let alone very hot. Hard drives need just normal air flow through a PC tower to stay around the temps of the motherboard.
I would suggest backing up ever thing from that hard drive that you want to save and get a new hard drive or ssd.

Also if you could fill out your System Specs more completely.
What case and power supply you are using.

Markme · 29 Jan 2014

@Ovenmaster
The pc only has the power button problem after maybe 10hrs of being off. Say i go to sleep, when I wake up and power on that's when that occurs. I should probably add that the rest of the system seems to power on normally just no display.

The CPU max is at 50degrees that's under high load and in a hot room. It was the first thing I checked and I'm fairly sure its not a problem.

I was just going to download HWMonitor when my screen went black, that's never happened before.

Okay so HWMonitor says that one of my disks is running at 46 the other at 38 it doesn't mention the third disk (I'm guessing the external one)

@Layback
Will do that now quick.

badger906 · 29 Jan 2014

81) your hard drive is knackered. no point doing tests ect, if its anything other than a little warm then its got issues. which go hand in hand with the constant crashes.

2) im also going to say your powersupply either has a dodgy rail, or is just over loaded.

the fact it happens after being off for a long time is a classic example as it first needs to load its capacitors with juice before it starts kicking any out. if the computer has only beem off a short period their will still be residual charge in the capacitors and theyll still be warm which should help with energy transfer.
meaning it has more initial charge.

madcratebuilder · 29 Jan 2014

HDD's should never be hot, normally they a few degrees above case ambient temp. In my case that's about 26-28C and this is with the high rpm raptor drives, my 7200 rpm drive is 25C and ssd's are 23-24C. What is your case air temps?

Your power up problem needs attention.

Markme · 29 Jan 2014

Case temp is 31C the harddrive is sitting at 50C currently so I'm guessing ill need to buy a new one?

The psu is quite likely overworked but is doing the job for now so I guess ill have to replace that when I can get hold of the money.

Final question, is it possible to move all my data from the drive to the new drive without having to reinstall everything? I really don't want to go through that whole process again so soon.

I'll look for a replacement then resetup the pc and post the results. Thx to all who have helped so far :)

badger906 · 29 Jan 2014

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