PC Case temperatures

[fradu]

Hello there,
Can anyone re-assure me what a nice stable temperature is for your case?
I have a thermometer built in to my Unit, and it currently reads 30.6C.
Is there a red-line that I should watch out for? (I suspect the screen will flag up a warning, but I hope it would never get to that stage)
Thanks for your time.
Mark

[frostbite]

You can get programs that will display the current temp in the taskbar.
I use Speedfan (google it) which is free.

This assumes your motherboard has a temp sensing setup which it will auto-detect.

What make/model computer have you?

[fradu]

I have a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Processor running on an Asrock ALIVENF6G-DVI Skt AM2 motherboard.
Other bits include 2Gb of RAM, 2 HDs (1 SATA), a USB card reader, DVD-RW drive, and PCI Modem.

I have installed Speedfan and the temperature seems to be hovering between 35c and 36c. I guess the recently noticed raise in case temperature is because of the warm weather. It's now 31.1c for instance, yet it's still quite humid where the PC is, even with a window open :cool:

Thanks for the link 'frostbite' :)

[rob-d]

I wouldn't be too worried about your CPU temp being in that range. Just make sure your CPU and system fans are running. The CPU temp will fluctuate depending on the load also so if you are running anything processor intensive this will elevate the core temp.

Install Speedfan and just make sure that the current readings match Speedfans. I would be happy with an average core temp of 30-32C.


Rob-d

[Turn It Off]

Those temps sound fine. I have had my case temp up at 45 when i have been gaming in the summer.

Core temps got that high as well and it didn't smell of burning up, although, that may be a tad warmer than expected.

[Parapunter]

I'd be worried at 45 degrees - that is warm for a pc. Until recently, I ran a small form factor pc with high performance components & it wasn't good at cooling - I did some readind on the subject and found that even samll measures such as clearing the dust from the fan blades periodically makes a difference to cooling efficiency.

You can go mad and install water cooling and all sorts of things, but a practical measure is to ensure that inside your case, all your leads are tidied away so that you ensure a reasonable airflow over the componentry.

[Lancelot37]

I use my Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop on the patio in Australia and the ambient temperature is 36ºC. I had the processor temperature as high as 68ºC. It didn't appear to come to any harm. I did ring Dell and they said that the computer will shutdown if it gets too hot.

In the UK the CPU normally runs at 38ºC and H.D at 26ºC.

My desktop Fujitsu Siemens has a CPU temp.of 36ºC and H.D temp. of 44ºC.

[nitro rig driver]

I downloaded speedfan and have 6 temps displayed
reading 39,0,0,-32,67,39 top to bottom
i assume the top one (temp1) is cpu and bottom (hdo) is hard disc drive

so what does the -32 and 67 refer to ???
above is with cpu running at about 20%

[Keef]

I've run Speedfan on my laptop and desktop. The third temperature seems to indicate around 67 degrees with both machines, but doesn't say which device is which temperature. Everest (which I far prefer) shows all the sensors that it finds, says what they are, and what the temperature is.

My laptop CPU was getting up to 90 degrees C before I opened it up and put some thermpath between the CPU and heatsink. Now it's between 40 and 50 most of the time.

The desktop is stable at somewhere around 10 degrees hotter than the room for the CPU, and 5 degrees hotter for the HDD. I don't know what temperature the graphics processor is, because there seems not to be a sensor for that.

[Tim_CPL]

I design embedded PC's for a living, and the CPU is not the critical part. An Intel CPU will get to 100C before it starts shutting down. The DRAM and HDD are your weak points. Standard DRAM will go to 65 or so, which at room temp is pretty easy to get exceed with a poorly designed cooling solution. The HDD will also have a max case temp of 60, which again is pretty easy to get to.

I have designed fanless dual-core industrial PC's that will run at 55C AMBIENT temp (in a thermal chamber) with industrial temp HDD's and DRAM. The CPU is running right at 100 and the DRAM is at 85, so these things get very toasty, but they run fine. The case on these things are normally a solid heatsink and at 55C in the chamber they are normally too hot to pickup without gloves! We cook these for 48 hours at 80% CPU utilisation on each core and everything else running flat out (Ethernet, memory etc).

That's why I chuckle when I see postings about 40C CPU on-die temps....:)

- Tim

[Saab Dastard]

There was an interesting report from Google not long ago, who had monitored their hard disks over a long period.

They found that HDDs were actually more tolerant of high temperatures than had previously been thought.

But this was in a stable environment, where a very steady state had been reached - i.e. continuous use, stable temps.

What hurts HDDs is significant fluctuations in temps, especially over short periods.

SD

[ZFT]

This thread has got me thinking. My Acer 5672 has experienced 2 HDD failures in 5 months. This laptop has a known characteristic of running hot and mine is no exception.
However my laptop has 2 typical daily duty cycles. At work with an ambient temp of 24C it typically indicates a HDD of 43C.
Outside of the work environment it operates at an ambient temp of up to 35C with a HDD temp of up to 63C.
Previous laptops (Satellite 320, TravelMate 660) exhibited no HDD problems with a similar operating life over many years.
Am I being too harsh on this particular machine?

[Tim_CPL]

The issue is that the 2.5" HDD manufacturers (actually all HDD manufacturers) are very coy about their specifications and MTBF. If you dig into the specs, you'll find that they arrive at their seemingly impressive MTBF's based on a 5 day, 8 hours per day and 50% duty cycle at 40C (normally). Leave the machine one 24/7 at max temps (and 63C is over max) and the expected lifetime will be very much less, typically 10-20% of that quoted. One solution if you don't need very large HDD's is to check out Seagate's EE25 HDD's. These are very rugged HDD's that will run at 75C 24/7. They were designed for automotive and industrial applications, and they are very reliable. Only issue is that they are only available to OEM's, cost a lot of money (read over 120GPB for 30G) and are PATA only. SATA will be here later this year.
The simpler solution may be to run the machine in an environment that doesn't overtemp the HDD, or invest in a notebook cooler.
The final solution is to make sure you have a good warranty, and plan for HDD failure. BTW the HDD's record their max temps and manufacturers can (and I have asked them to do this) read the max temp the HDD got to, and the duration....

- Tim

[ZFT]

Tim CPL,

Interesting. Thanks. The 5672 requires SATA so ruggedised drives not an option for now.

Agreed 63C is over max - The max operating temp is quoted at 55C but ACER have replaced both HDDs under warranty and I have got a full back up drive now following these failures.

I’ve noticed that making the drive work reasonable hard even at low ambient temps can at times increase the HDD temp above 55C on this machine so suspect this is something I’ll have to live with.

Can’t do much about the home environment apart from move!! Might invest in a lapcooler though.

[Bushfiva]

The new Seagate Momentus.2 (7200rpm - it's a screamer) has a max operating temp of 60C, non-operating of 70C. So, it's close to your needs. Idle power 0.8W, 2.1W read/write. 160GB for not much money at all. Maybe you could give it a try. Since Seagate is promoting the drives for blade servers, it seems they expect 24/7 operation. It probably runs cooler than the 4200 rpm unit you may have in there.

I *think* BIOS control of the fan is iffy on the earlier models. You should be running BIOS rev 3224 or higher. The Vista update pack at ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/pub/Asp...a%20Update.zip (ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/pub/Aspire%205670/Aspire5670%20Vista%20Update.zip) includes an even more recent BIOS. I don't know if it's suitable for your model, but rummaging around the site might yield more info. Some people claim their machine runs 10 degrees cooler. I'll just repeat, I DON'T know if this is the right BIOS for your machine, so please do your own research :ooh:

Oooh, some people here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=74516&page=2 have been popping the case and discovering some of the ventilation slots are blanked off with film. Keep reading and you'll see that they've worked out the airflow around the machine, so the film is probably necessary.

Also, there's a cheap cooler out there that plugs into the PC card slot. I don't know if that would help.