Overheating Hard Drive?

[Delos]

Ok, so it seems that my hard drive has been overheating lately. How do I know? It makes these oddly-terrifying "click-clickity-click" noises occaisionally, after having been left on for 2.5+ hours (aprx.). Yes, this is the same hard drive that has given my problems in the past, but right now I don't have the time to replace it (won't until Summer begins).
I'm not too sure why it's started doing this now. I've left the computer running for extended periods of time in the past...I thought perhaps it was because my room was so damn hot, but today is an oddly cool day (it was freggin' snowing!) so it mightn't be that either.

I've stripped my comptuer down, so its guts are open to the world, but that doesn't seem to help too much. When I feel the durn thing, it's still hot enough to fry a quail-egg.

Any quick-fix solutions? Well, omit the 'quick' part if necassary. ^_^.

Merçi.

In case anyone is wondering, the drive in purgatory is a Maxtor, ~160 GB or so.

[timmytheturtle]

I had a problem like that when I added a second hard drive to my computer. It got extremely warm and I was hearing a weird noise..much like the "click-clickity-click" noise you are hearing. I solved the problem by adding extra fans. One mounted on the new drive, drawing heat off. and other on the front of the case pushing cool air in. It seemed to solve the problem.

So if you have extra fan's lying around try adding one or two.

[Delos]

Tried that a while back...problem was that my case is apparently very unique and the fan wouldn't fit anywhere on it...quite aggrevating really. Seeing as I do have the extra power-source lying around, I could hook it up and use its fan as an extra fan...though I'm not sure that'd be the most energy-efficient way of doing it .
Any other suggestions?

[Mazer]

But how do we know the problem is due to overheating?

Clickety-clickety-click sounds more like dying to me.

[timmytheturtle]

Seeing as you said that you've had problems with the drive in the past, Coutsos might be right, it could be dying.

[Delos]

Quite possible too...though testing this current hypothesis is the best I can do for now . Ah, damn Stats, infiltrating my life!

[Tony]

Delos wrote:

I've stripped my comptuer down, so its guts are open to the world

Put a house fan next to it like that. If the problem persists - you know it's not from heat.

[Andy]

ummm there was a tool that lets you check the temperature on your hard drive.. i'll try to find it at work tomorrow, but i agree with the rest of them, the drive is probably dying

[Delos]

Dying it seems to be...last night before it had another spurt of 'clickity-click', it started beeping first . Can a hard drive actually do that? [sigh]. I'll just have to bear with it for a week or so then do an overhaul next week (no time this week).
Strange though...all my bookmarks from Firefox have disappeared...very strange.

[Blade]

well, theres a good system monitoring tool called SysTool. it monitors everything imaginable, even your left index finger.

like tony says a good housefan would do the trick, but if you want something that doesnt make such a mess and would probably perform a little better, you can invest in a hdd cooler. there are some generic ones you can get for less than 20$.

This one here is a little goochy. this one has a larger heatsink on the bottom. the generic ones like this one will have one or two fans (most likely 60mm) on the bottom.

to tell you the truth though.. like what was said above, everytime i've encountered clickity click, its been because the hard drive is dying. my buddy's maxtor 40gig did that for a while then it just totally died. the mobo stopped detecting it and everything.

[Delos]

Thanks for the link Blade. My Hard Drive is currently at 41 * Celcius after being on for about half an hour...heh. Yeah, it needs a replacement.
The NCIX website was interesting. Now, if only there was an equivalent store in ON! Would you suggest TigerDirect, factoryDirect, or other stores to get the new hardware?

[Andy]

tigerdirect is ok.. but shipping is ridiculous.. ncix's shipping is pretty cheap actually

[Mazer]

Of course, if you have a TigerDirect in your city...

[Blade]

well if you live in leamington, that isnt too far away from london. in london theres a pretty cheap place called cutting edge. i buy quite a bit from there. if you want to look at their price list its right here. go here for phone numbers and an address of where they are. they're pretty good, but they're really horrible for returns. they're usually pretty fast and have quite a bit in stock for being a small store. prices are pretty competitive against the larger companies and those small corner computer stores you get in smaller cities. i noticed that even cutting edge is cheaper for hard drives than tigerdirect and ncix. i dont know if its still the same cuz that was a month or two ago.


the only disadvantage with ncix is that they're in BC. it usually takes about 5 days of placing the order, for the order to arrive at your house with 2day shipping. they seem to be a little slow at processing orders. but i still order from them because they usually have pretty sweet deals going on.

i ordered a 430w enermax psu from tigerdirect at the end of last year. i got it in about 2 days, then a week later i came home one night and the thing was totally dead. so i returned it and they never updated me as to what was going on. about a week after sending it back, i checked my account and they had refunded the money. i was a little mad about that because the guy on the phone said they'd send me a new one. i havent really bought anything from them since because ncix and cutting edge are generally cheaper.

[Mazer]

Is there another London in Ontario that I haven't heard about? Leamington -> London and back seems like a heck of a drive for an HD even if there are some sexy deals going on there. Will they ship?

I haven't tried ordering from ncix before, but my experiences with TigerDirect.ca have been very good. The only time I've had to wait very long for parts was when they were on order.