I have a 250GB drive in an AOpen EZ482.

Speedfan reports the HHD temp as 57C normally.

I feel that this is a little on the high side. If I play games it peaks out about 60C.

Erm... Anyone had any similar problems and how did you resolve it? Preferably, resolve it in place, rather than booting the HDD and case into tough and starting again?

Cheers,

Jeremy.

What make is your hard drive?

Your only real options are to increase airflow through the case and over the HDD.

One option would be to put the HDD into a 5 1/4" bay with a purpose designed HDD cooler on it. If you go this route I would get a fanless one and then uprate the fan at the back of your case to flow more air.

Another thing to check is that at the front of the case you have somewhere the air can get in and at the back that the fans are all sucking air out not in.

60 isn't instantly fatal, but it's going to seriously shorten the life of the drive as most drives I know of have a range of about 5 to 55 degrees.

I'd be taking regular backups and if the temperature has been that high for a while and you have important data on there, then I'd be tempted to replace the drive as some damage may have already been done.

Whatever you do I'd aim to get it down to about 40 degrees.

There used to be some software that regulated the fan speeds to take account of various temperatures of parts ....but I can't find it

57c is normal for a hard drive, my windows home server has good ventilation and all the drives run at between 50 and 57c. The disk revolving at 7200RPM generates a lot of heat, especially because the drive itself is sealed to atmosphere. Another thing to remember is that some external HD's have no fans in them and the drives run far hotter because there is zero airflow, one external one I have is like this and has been running 24/7 for years.

57 is way too high

try running the pc with the side off the case and see what the temps are then - if they drop way down then you have an airflow problem

try and blow air over the drive, or do what i have done inthe past to drop case temps by ~10 degrees - fit a top blowhole - 120mm fan blowing hot rising air from the case skywards - works a treat

There used to be some software that regulated the fan speeds to take account of various temperatures of parts ....but I can't find it

That'd be "Speedfan" then

I'm using it for reporting only. There are only 2 fans in the case. A zalman CPU fan and the PSU fan, IMO. Though it's been more than a year since I looked inside it.

I think I need more space around the HDD really. Though again, I don't know if I recall correctly but I think the HDD is buried down at the front of the case behind the multimedia connectors and their like. I.e. No where near a cooler spot.

This is the case/system....

AOpen - XC Cube EZ482

J.

Trust me when I say 57 degrees is way too hot for the hard drive if you want a long and reliable life from it. On most drive enclosures a warning will kick in at 50 degrees and they go critical before 60 degrees.

See the thermal secontion on this for it's operating temp range:

http://www.ggsdata.se/PC/Bilder/hd/7K500.pdf

If you only have your Zalman fan and your PSU fan, then straight away there is your problem. Does the CPU fan vent directly out of the case or it it leaving the heat to sit inside as it's only a very small case with a vent on one side for the CPU heat.

If you can go fit another quiet 80mm or 120mm at the front (pulling air in) or at the back (pulling air out) and the nominal temperatures inside your case will drop a bit.