I discovered a heat problem in my main drive (it was running at 60C) and I have replaced it. Both the replacement and the second drive now run cooler but still marginally high. They typically run at just a degree or two under 50C but, if the room temperature increases a degree or two or if my system suddenly decides to do something that stresses the drives such as a scan or backup, they will increase to 50C or perhaps even a degree or two higher.
The disk monitoring software that checks the SMART data regularly (Crystal Disk Info) kicks out a temperature warning at 50C. I believe this warning level is set by the manufacturer is their SMART parms so they consider 50C to be too high. In addition, my GPU runs rather hot at about 62C normally. There are reasons both the drives and the GPU run rather hot and I would like to provide some better cooling. The reason these items run hot is that I commonly have one of my monitors in use displaying TV programming from a Hauppauge tuner. The decoding and display of TV puts a significant load on both the CPU (Core 2 Quad 6600) and the GPU (Nvidia GeForce 9600GT). In addition, the WinTV software writes continuously to the second drive in order to provide features such as “Instant Replay” etc. Any additional work, such as Photoshop work or background activity such as a scan, will drive all four processors up over 50% and cause the drives to work quite hard.
The CPU is not much of a problem since it’s fan draws fresh air in through the side of the case through a directing ‘funnel’ directly to the CPU cooler. This fan is speed controlled to keep the CPU at a reasonable temperature. The case fan on the back of the case is also speed controlled by a sensor on the motherboard. The PSU fan also exhausts air but is not monitored. The GPU fan on the 9600 board is likely speed controlled by the Nvidia on-board hardware. It doesn’t directly exhaust any air.
The two internal drives are in a cage at the front of the case and are separated from each other by an empty drive bay. They ‘must’ be separated because the separating bay is encroached upon by the rear power connector on the Nvidia GPU board so that I couldn’t put a drive in that bay even if I wanted to. The front ventilation allows air into bottom front of the case then up a channel created by the removable front panel and through the perforated front of the drive bay cage.
What I would like to do (if I can find the appropriate cooler(s)) is install a cooling device in the empty drive bay between the two internal disks that would draw air into the case through the front channel and cool the drive above and below the bay. It would then pass through the case helping with GPU cooling and case cooling in general. As an alternative, I might be able to mount a thin fan within the channel formed by the front panel to blow air into the case through the perforated front of the drive bay cage. There doesn’t seem to be any reasonable way to mount another rear fan.
Can anyone suggest any appropriate hardware or an alternative. I have searched in particular for drive coolers but they all appear to focus on blowing internal air over the drive. None seem to make a point of drawing their air from the front of the cage. By simply blowing internal air down (or up) over a drive and then exhausting that air in all directions, they could easily reduce the fresh air intake through the front channel. I really need some device that will draw air in through the front of the case, then over the drives and out the rear of the case.
I just realized this post would have been more appropriate elsewher but I can’t find any way to move it. Sorry.
