T30 HDD too hot! Help?

[stepon]

My T30's RAM & HDD corner is amazingly hot. It has gotten hot enough to melt off the matte black paint. Crystal says 54°C idle, 64°C active for the Hitachi DK23EA-60B. Being a 4,200 RPM drive, I didn't think it would get this hot. RAM is upgrade x2 512MB with a hinky outermost bay being pressed in by a silicone grommet.

SMART indicates health status as Caution or Danger. I've already got a laptop cooler on order...anything else I can do? Maybe a PATA SSD?

[ajkula66]

A conventional HDD is a far better purchase for a machine as old as T30.

Your "pressing trick" might be a partial cause of the overheating problem as well.

Several things I'd do:

a) Remove the hard drive immediately. Back up any/all important data using an USB enclosure.

b) Test the RAM with memtest86.

c) Clean the fan, preferably re-apply the thermal paste as well. These machines are a decade old now.

Good luck.

[stepon]

Good tips. I've got the original 10 GB PATA handy, I'll image that and see if the drive is the cause but good excuse to make a backup.
As for the silicon grommet, it is the only think keeping the RAM contacts touching so I'd loose 512MB if not there. I figure if the drive was scrubbing less due to more ram, it would help wear and temps?