Harddisk apparently running at 67c

[MadEye2]

I've jsut downloaded SpeedFan 4.20. It doesn't support my mobo but it does give me temperatures for more or less everything. According to the program my HD2 is running at 65-70 degrees celsius, but, te other hard disk HD0, which is the same model is running at 35c. Do you reckon this sounds accurate? Shouldn't it be called HD1, or has it changed the label because of partitioning on my harddisk? The rack hold the diskdrives does feels warm, and the hot harddisk is in between the HD0 and FD0. I'm going to separate the harddisks further in a moment.

This Speedfan program is also giving random temperatures for Fan03 - ranging from -8 to 80 degrees c. I have no idea what fan this is - Only one of the fans is on a tachometer, and I'm presuming it's Fan02, but it's only registering 0RPM, the other case fan is on a 12v line but it seems to be giving an wavering 893RPM

Can someone tell me if any of this makes sense please?

Thanks

 

[MadEye2]

Separated the harddisks now, but the second disk is still on registering high temperatures. My boot disk is running at 32°c while my second disk is registering at 55°c. Anyone know why it's so warm please?

Edit: This is with my case open. All temperatures apart from that harddisk are between 31 and 34°c, andIi'm pointing an 80mm fan into the gap between the drives and it's not lowering temperatures at all.

 

[akira34]

Sounds like because speed fan doesn't support your mobo it's giving you false readings... Gee, imagine that. :disgust:

I suggest you try some other apps, such as MotherBoard Monitor 5 and Everest Home, to compare readings. Also, what drives are these (make, model, etc.)?? Do you have any case fans blowing across them? If not, consider putting them into positions where they would get cool (from the outside of the case) air blown over them.

 

[MadEye2]

Yeah I was thinking that, but the secondary harddisk does feel warmer than the primary, and the CPU temperature of SpeedFan is the same as the temperature giving at boot up - I reseted it to check.
They're both Maxtor 6E040L0 40GB disks

 

[akira34]

Does the second drive feel like it's ~ 130 F??

Since you're running maxtor drives, the second one COULD be running that hot. I have 0 confidence in the quality of maxtor drives these days.

 

[MadEye2]

The second drive is older, I don't know if that is a factor in it, but it's possible. I'm going to swap both drives around so that the warm disk is getting a bit more air, but, I don't have much hope because the 80mm fan isn't making the slightest bit of difference.
MBM 5 doesn't support my mobo and i can't seem to find a decent download link for everest
Clutching at straws here but could this rounded ATA133 cable I'm using have anything to do with it?

 

[MadEye2]

It does feel about 60°c on top. I've no idea at all why, the drive isn't even being accessed

 

[akira34]

I'd say it's time to start thinking about replacing that old drive with a new one. If you have SATA on your mobo, go that way... For what you paid for the old 40's you can probably get a 200GB drive for now...

 

[MadEye2]

It looks like I'll have to. I can only afford another 40GB one at the moment, and they're terrible value for money, but 40GB is all I need anyway. Thanks akira.

 

[akira34]

You mean you don't have $61 to splurge on an 80GB drive?? Considering how 40GB drives are damned close to that, it would be foolish to NOT get the larger drive. Price per GB is a hell of a lot better once you hit the 80GB mark. You'll either pay 75 cents/GB with the 80 or $1.41/GB with the 40... The price difference between the two drives (both with 8MB cache's, 3 year warranties, apples to apples) is under $10. You can get a cheaper 40GB drive, but I wouldn't... Bare minimum should be a 3 year warranty.

 

[MadEye2]

The cheapest 80GB is about the same price as a 40GB on the shop I use, but the specs on it aren't that great. I can't shop at Newegg because the import fees will push the overall price to high. I can get a 120GB Hitachi drive for £10 more, but I'll have to wait as I'm almost skint at the moment.

Win98SE supports up to about 160GB without partitioning doesn't it?

On booting up this morning, and it's absolutely freezing here this time of day, SmartFan is reporting a temperature of 40°c even though the case of the disk feels as cool as the main drive. All other temps are between 18 and 25°c. The drive is only a couple of years old, too.
Ok, just finished typing this and now it's reporting 47°c, all other temps have jumped up about 4°c

 

[akira34]

Man, that really sucks to be you then... If your IDE controller is new enough, you shouldn't have any issue going past the 137GB barrier... Then again, I haven't used 98SE since 1999.

If you want a drive that's going to last longer, get a better one... I've had excellent luck with both Western Digital and Seagate drives. Maxtor drives, from my experience, have simply sucked. I don't care if they have the 16MB cache drives, I won't get one.

 

[MadEye2]

Theres a Western Digital one I'm looking at which is only a few pounds more than the Hitachi, which I'm looking into. I'm in no rush though, I just transfered all the stuff I use onto the main HD so I can wait a couple of weeks. I've emailed Maxtor to see if they have any idea why it's cooking itself and I should get an email back from then early next week.

I remember about 7 years ago, the reverse seemed to be true back then - I remember people writing in to Amiga magazines complaining about Western Digital and especially Seagate drives a lot lol, times have changed.

 

[akira34]

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Maxtor to get back to you.

As for Seagate, I've used their SCSI drives without any issues at all. I'm running a pair of Seagate SATA drives in my rig now, along with a pair of WD SATA drives. Both pairs run just fine. The Seagate SCSI drives that I had are still running strong, and those are from the late 90's. I don't have them any more, but I know they are still in service even today.

As for hitachi drives, I ordered up a pair of them a few months back. Went to use them in a customer build (since they were supposed to be so damned good) only to have one fail on me within a few hours time. I replaced it with a Seagate that was 100% right off the bat. Of all the Seagate drives I've used, I have 0% failure. I've only had one WD drive go bad, and I think the mobo killed that one (a system owned by a client that wasn't built by me). I got the replacement from WD (did the online advanced RMA) within a few days and installed it. Shipped back the bad one (cheap shipping) and have not had a peep from them since.

 

[winr]

Check this out.


http://www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php

 

[MadEye2]

It's OK, Winr, I knew most of the information there - I just couldn't remember the limitations of 98se (even though it says on the back of the maxtor box which is sat 4 feet away!).

 

[akira34]

You'll have a good chance of getting past the limit if you update to either win2k (sp2 or above I believe) or XP Pro (sp1 or 2)... Of course, your IDE bus will need to support drives over 137GB. Any old software you have should work fine under XP Pro.

 

[MadEye2]

I have a pirate install of XP Pro but I never use it - I'm one of those people who prefer 98. I'm going to go for an 80GB or 120GB drive anyway - I hadn't even used half my total capacity of 80GB when I had the toasty Maxtor plugged in.

 

[akira34]

I'll pretend I didn't read that about the version of xp you have... Personally, I'd rather put my nuts into a vise then use 98 or ME... Win2k was the first decent OS that came out of microsoft and xp (after SP1) is decent too.

As for not using much of your hard drives... I'm not in that same boat. I backed up a bunch from my boot drives (the two 160GB on RAID 0) to my other array (500GB total) and it's 2/3 full. I've not moved things back over to the boot array yet, but I might. I want to have at least 50% free on both drives, so that I have less to worry about. I've also been at over 50% usage on the boot array before, which is probably more than you'll use in a lifetime.