Thinkpads Forum

I have recently purchased a new hard drive for my 600e. It is a Hitachi 60g 5400rpm drive. During heavy acess times such as watching a divx movie on this machine the drive can exceed 55c. Is this normal? It runs around 35c during non-acess times. I have no experience with laptops but it seems to me that there isnt really alot of airflow in there for the tiny drive. Please advise.
Thank you.

I think that you might be running into the same problems that AlphaKilo470 is running into.

He has a 400MHz processor and a 40GB 5400rpm drive. He is having heating problems that he thinks might be causing problems with his hard drive.

There may be something to this afterall. Maybe a better cooling process might be in order, or atleast a better fan. Not sure if the 600X fan will fit or not.

By now the chkdsk I was running should be done. Before running that I sealed my hard drive in a static bag, then in a ziplock freezer bag then placed it infront of the fan in my freezer for 20 minutes. I also took the time while waiting on drive to cool down to reposition all my papers and paprereights and pens and pencils to ensure that air is not just leaving my laptop but also leaveing the desk and not doing circles around the desk area.

The 600E was designed in 1998, with a 3gb 4200rpm hard drive and a 300mhz PII w/ off chip cache in mind, not with a 400mhz cpu w/ on-chip cache and a 40gb 5400rpm hard drive, I think maybe my computer just outgrew itself.

If I make any progress and/or find workarounds, I'll be sure to post them.

Chkdsk just finished running on my laptop and I'm actually typing up this post on the laptop, something that I wasn't able to do earlier because of bad sectors. I also will run Windows Update again because that is something else that would hit the bad sectors. This is all after rearranging my desk to guarantee beter airflow. I'll use my computer normally and see if the problem comes back, if so it's on to a new drive, if not then I guess it'll be safe to call my problem isolated and done with. With the heat these newer drives can generate, you really should take some levels of caution when using them in an older machine.

Maybe a better cooling process might be in order, or atleast a better fan. Not sure if the 600X fan will fit or not.

Does the cpu fan actually have anything to do with the hdd? Or are we talking about another fan that I am unaware of? I was under the impression that my machine only had one fan in it?

With the heat these newer drives can generate, you really should take some levels of caution when using them in an older machine.

I kind of figured that but I could not keep myself from upgrading to such a drive. The acess times and storage space that it provides are incredible when compared to the stock drive now acting as a paperweight on my desk.

I digress, is this sort of temp I am running dangerous to the drive? I would hate to ruin it.

The CPU fan that cools the CPU chip is the only fan in the computer. The CPU is not too far from the hard drive so that heat can merge together if the laptop is in a poor area as far as heat is concerned. If you use the laptop on a clean desk where the heat won't come back once it's blown out of the computer, that should help. I don't think the high risks come into play unless you have the vent covered, in my laptop, the fan seems to provide enough cooling if it's used in a good area but it doesn't seem to give too much leeway with the 400mhz CPU and the 5400rpm hard drive together if I have any airflow that's less than ideal.

The CPU fan is the only fan in the 600E, but overall, I think that it does help in keeping the total system temperature down.

Unfortunately, I'm not really sure what the "safe" zones would be for the 600E.

The safe zones probably vary according to machine configuration. A circa 2000 4BU with the 400mhz CPU and a 40gb 5400RPM hard drive is probably going to have a much smaller safety zone than say a circa 1998 or early 1999 55U with a slower hard drive and a 300mhz CPU. I'm not sure what the safety zone is with a 366mhz computer, the 366mhz cpu's seem to run just cool enough in comparison to the 400 that you notice the difference, but not much more.

Also, make sure your fan is clean. When I first got my 600E, I blew compressed air into the air vent and a cloud of dust came out. Same thing again after using the computer for about a month. Dust builds up FAST and when it's too much it can really mess things up. If you regularly dust out the system, you'll probably have a better chance of the fan lasting longer too since the dust won't be as likely to get pushed up into the bearings.

what kind of temps are you running AlphaKilo470 ?

As stated during "crunch time" my hdd is running 'bout 55c and cpu around 59c

Not sure if it's possible or logical but im going to look into adding a small fan near or directly moving positive airflow towards the hdd. As I was purpoesly working the drive hard pushing the temp up high, I was monitoring the temp with 2 different programs that both read the same live temp. I removed the drives cover and blew lightly into it just as if I were cooling a bite of food before eating it and I was able to drop the temp 3c in less than a minute. The hard drive is just begging me for better airflow. I will keep posting if I come up with a viable option.