Yesterday I turned off my computer, unplugged it and waited for the green light in the back to go off. Then I installed anothr 512MB of RAM. When I did this I touched the hard drive and it was hot. I also touched the 3D card and it was warmer, almost hot but not as hot as the hard drives. I have two 80GB udma hard drives. One is a western digital. The 3D card is an NVIDIA 5200 FX.

It is a newer computer, Compaq S6000CL.

AMD Athlon XP 2800+
2 80GB HD's
1GB Ram
NVIDIA 5200 GeForce FX
Sound Blaster Live
DVD ROM
CDRW


I am wondering if I just added a lot and it is heating the computer up more, in which case I need another fan or two in it. I keep my computer on 24/7. I am wondering if I should turn it off at night now.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.


Webwolf

A running computer and its components will get hot. Adding fans always help the performance but its perfectly normal for electrical components to heat up. Turning it off would be your choice, my own thumb of rule is, if your not going to use it for 6 to 8 hours or more and its not a server, just turn it off.

Ok, Thanks. I never payed attention to this computer before when it came to the temprature. It is running fine but the hot hd's had me wondering. When I do get a fan where do I plug the thing in. I looked inside and the only thing I saw was the spot for the cpu fan. And I think it is a good idea NOT to touch that one, LOL.

Webwolf

You can also use smartctl in smartmontools package (eg. ) to see your HD temperature values.

get more fans

smartctl is installed by default or has to be installed??

Anyplace where I can find its rpm??

Ok. These are the tempratures of my CPU and both hard drives.

CPU is 68c(154F)
hd0 is 49c(120F)
hd1 is 51c (122F)


How does this sound to everyone?

Thanks

Webwolf

Aaah....that's very hot....
this is the only thing in the "quote" because..it is not good that you CPU is getting heated so much...

one possibility for this is ...the fan of the CPU might be dusty and u need to clean it up....

As per technical guidelines....any temperature for CPU from 40 C to 60 C is absolutely fine...

Above 60 C is too much...u need to check your CPU fan....and heatsink.....

I have been looking at the inside of my computer. I like to keep it as clean as I can. The fan and heat sink looked fairly well when I glanced at it before. But............ I took the fan off and it was filthy. I also cleaned the fan in the power supply.

I am monitoring the temperatures now to see if that helped or how much it helped. Thanks.


Webwolf

My temp for the CPU seems to be holding at 64C. So far my hard drives are at 42C and 43C.
It seems that cleaning the fans and heat sink helped a little.


Webwolf

My CPU runs about 38C at all times and my 7200 RPM HD is always cool to the touch. This is my desktop PC it runs 24/7 and sounds like a hair dryer. I don't know if it helps but I have always had a fan cooling my hard drives. This particular one is 6 years old and has outlived 3 PC's, but has always been cooled.

Thanks. I think I will be getting a fan soon. This is the only computer I have had that gets this hot. I have an older computer, about 1998/1999 and it does not get this hot. But I do have a lot more on this computer then I do on that one.


Webwolf

Well the good news is this. I bought two fans and seperated both of my Hard Drives. I have one fan blowing out the back and the second fan is blowing on hd1, which for some reason gets a bit hotter then hd0.

right now I am getting, aprox.

hd0 = 33C
hd1 = 36C
CPU = 55C

I am getting intersted in water cooling and I will check into that to see what I might be able to get and what it is all about, I am new to water cooling hardware.

Thanks again everyone.

Webwolf