I recently had a HD failure and several friends suggested it was related to temperature.
My system is a dual 1.25 G4, FW-800 with 4 HDs internally: 1 80GB with my system, apps and non-media files; another 80 that's identical to the first; a 200GB full of MP3s and; a 250GB full of MP3s.
I downloaded a little app that reports the temperature as around 138 to 140 F.
If I open the case and let a small desk fan blow directly into the box, it reports between 111 F and 116 F
I just bought a PCI slot fan which appears to be nearly useless... reporting 136-138 F
What is the top acceptable temperature for my Mac and what is an ideal temp? And what are some solutions if I need any?
Thanks
heron
Certainly could be due to heat. This app that is reporting your temperature, where is it measuring the temperature from? Something on the motherboard or what?
Either way, I think 140F is acceptable for a case temperature. Are all of your fans (CPU, power supply, exhaust fans) operational?
I've never had a desktop mac, so I don't know what the internals of the case are like, but with PCs I've built in the past, I've always tried to space out my hard drives as much as possible. Including some inexpensive mounting brackets to put a 3.5" drive into a 5.25" bay. This will keep them from insulating one another, especially if they are 7200RPM+
Wish I could help more. Good luck.
Jason
heron stone wrote:
I recently had a HD failure and several friends suggested it was related to temperature.
My system is a dual 1.25 G4, FW-800 with 4 HDs internally: 1 80GB with my system, apps and non-media files; another 80 that's identical to the first; a 200GB full of MP3s and; a 250GB full of MP3s.
I downloaded a little app that reports the temperature as around 138 to 140 F.
If I open the case and let a small desk fan blow directly into the box, it reports between 111 F and 116 F
I just bought a PCI slot fan which appears to be nearly useless... reporting 136-138 F
What is the top acceptable temperature for my Mac and what is an ideal temp? And what are some solutions if I need any?
Thanks
heron
In article FTQqc.2098$244.610@redacted.invalid, Jason Koesters no.spam@redacted.invalid wrote:
Certainly could be due to heat. This app that is reporting your temperature, where is it measuring the temperature from? Something on the motherboard or what?
thanks for the response
apparently my model has a dedicated temperature sensor somewhere(?) that the software reads
heron
Well, like I said, that seems like a reasonable temperature from my experience with PCs. You've got two CPUs, a heavy duty graphics processor of some sort (ATI or Nvidia), 4 HDD, a power supply, and a partridge in a pear tree to generate heat. It will get warm.
As a warning, I wouldn't always trust those sorts of temp measurements though. They're renowned in the PC world for being unreliable, either in the hardware used for the temperature measurement or the software interpreting that data.
I still think the best bet is trying to space out the hard drives to provide airflow around each of them for the longest life duration.
Jason
heron stone wrote:
apparently my model has a dedicated temperature sensor somewhere(?) that the software reads
heron
In article zjUqc.597$UU6.383@redacted.invalid, Jason Koesters no.spam@redacted.invalid wrote:
Well, like I said, that seems like a reasonable temperature from my experience with PCs. You've got two CPUs, a heavy duty graphics processor of some sort (ATI or Nvidia), 4 HDD, a power supply, and a partridge in a pear tree to generate heat. It will get warm.
As a warning, I wouldn't always trust those sorts of temp measurements though. They're renowned in the PC world for being unreliable, either in the hardware used for the temperature measurement or the software interpreting that data.
I still think the best bet is trying to space out the hard drives to provide airflow around each of them for the longest life duration.
Jason
heron stone wrote:
apparently my model has a dedicated temperature sensor somewhere(?) that the software reads
heron
if 140F is acceptable for the CPUs, then my problem is just dealing with the heat in the rear bay drives.
there doesn't seem to be much room left in the rear to space out the HDs without more effort than i'm willing to put forth.
i was considering a fan in the rear just for those two HDs.
thanks
heron
The added fan is not a bad idea. Make sure it is exhaust though. Exhaust fans are far more important than intake, because if you are pumping air in, then you are a just moving around air that is still warm without evacuating it.
The CPUs are probably much hotter at the die than 140F.
There isn't a 5.25" bay or two empty in the front to mount one or two of the HDD into? Like I said, I don't know about the desktop layouts, so forgive my ignorance.
Hope it turns out well.
Jason
heron stone wrote:
if 140F is acceptable for the CPUs, then my problem is just dealing with the heat in the rear bay drives.
there doesn't seem to be much room left in the rear to space out the HDs without more effort than i'm willing to put forth.
i was considering a fan in the rear just for those two HDs.
thanks
heron
Jason Koesters wrote:
The added fan is not a bad idea. Make sure it is exhaust though. Exhaust fans are far more important than intake, because if you are pumping air in, then you are a just moving around air that is still warm without evacuating it.
The CPUs are probably much hotter at the die than 140F.
There isn't a 5.25" bay or two empty in the front to mount one or two of the HDD into? Like I said, I don't know about the desktop layouts, so forgive my ignorance.
Hope it turns out well.
Jason
heron stone wrote:
if 140F is acceptable for the CPUs, then my problem is just dealing with the heat in the rear bay drives.
there doesn't seem to be much room left in the rear to space out the HDs without more effort than i'm willing to put forth.
i was considering a fan in the rear just for those two HDs.
Don't overlook that you should be able to unmount drives that you won't be using for a while. That should lower overall temp, and save you at least a penny every few days... or hours, depending on your rates....
In article <_QWqc.118596$Ik.10022800@redacted.invalid_s53>, jpmcwilliams jpmcw@redacted.invalid wrote:
Jason Koesters wrote:
The added fan is not a bad idea. Make sure it is exhaust though. Exhaust fans are far more important than intake, because if you are pumping air in, then you are a just moving around air that is still warm without evacuating it.
The CPUs are probably much hotter at the die than 140F.
There isn't a 5.25" bay or two empty in the front to mount one or two of the HDD into? Like I said, I don't know about the desktop layouts, so forgive my ignorance.
Hope it turns out well.
Jason
heron stone wrote:
if 140F is acceptable for the CPUs, then my problem is just dealing with the heat in the rear bay drives.
there doesn't seem to be much room left in the rear to space out the HDs without more effort than i'm willing to put forth.
i was considering a fan in the rear just for those two HDs.
Don't overlook that you should be able to unmount drives that you won't be using for a while. That should lower overall temp, and save you at least a penny every few days... or hours, depending on your rates....
The second 80GB HD is just a backup of my boot drive. It's only used once a day for about a 1/2 hour while Retrospect Dups the boot drive to it. The other two (200GB and 250GB) contain the majority of my MP3s. Those drives are only needed when I'm listening to or working with my music... usually with iTunes.
Is there a way to specify drives to spin down? I have several other external FW drives that are working drives and it's really annoying to have to wait for them to spin up every time i access them. The two internals, though, are just archives and could easily be spun down when not in use.
heron
heron stone wrote:
In article <_QWqc.118596$Ik.10022800@redacted.invalid_s53>, jpmcwilliams jpmcw@redacted.invalid wrote:
Jason Koesters wrote:
The added fan is not a bad idea. Make sure it is exhaust though. Exhaust fans are far more important than intake, because if you are pumping air in, then you are a just moving around air that is still warm without evacuating it.
The CPUs are probably much hotter at the die than 140F.
There isn't a 5.25" bay or two empty in the front to mount one or two of the HDD into? Like I said, I don't know about the desktop layouts, so forgive my ignorance.
Hope it turns out well.
Jason
heron stone wrote:
if 140F is acceptable for the CPUs, then my problem is just dealing with the heat in the rear bay drives.
there doesn't seem to be much room left in the rear to space out the HDs without more effort than i'm willing to put forth.
i was considering a fan in the rear just for those two HDs.
Don't overlook that you should be able to unmount drives that you won't be using for a while. That should lower overall temp, and save you at least a penny every few days... or hours, depending on your rates....
The second 80GB HD is just a backup of my boot drive. It's only used once a day for about a 1/2 hour while Retrospect Dups the boot drive to it. The other two (200GB and 250GB) contain the majority of my MP3s. Those drives are only needed when I'm listening to or working with my music... usually with iTunes.
Is there a way to specify drives to spin down? I have several other external FW drives that are working drives and it's really annoying to have to wait for them to spin up every time i access them. The two internals, though, are just archives and could easily be spun down when not in use.
I just drag 'em to the trash.
John McWilliams
heron stone wrote:
In article <_QWqc.118596$Ik.10022800@redacted.invalid_s53>, jpmcwilliams jpmcw@redacted.invalid wrote:
Jason Koesters wrote:
The added fan is not a bad idea. Make sure it is exhaust though. Exhaust fans are far more important than intake, because if you are pumping air in, then you are a just moving around air that is still warm without evacuating it.
The CPUs are probably much hotter at the die than 140F.
The CPUs may be in the range of 75 to 95 C. I think the return to copper conductors (vs. aluminium, which oxidises faster) is, at least in part, due to the higher run temperatures nowadays.
Is there a way to specify drives to spin down? I have several other external FW drives that are working drives and it's really annoying to have to wait for them to spin up every time i access them. The two internals, though, are just archives and could easily be spun down when not in use.
I just drag 'em to the trash.
John McWilliams
Thanks, but doesn't that unmount the drives... i just want to put them to sleep. I don't mind waiting a few seconds for them to spin up when i want to listen to some music, but i don't want to have to open up Disk Utility and manually mount the drives every time i need them.
heron
On Thu, 20 May 2004, George Williams wrote:
The CPUs may be in the range of 75 to 95 C. I think the return to copper conductors (vs. aluminium, which oxidises faster) is, at least in part, due to the higher run temperatures nowadays.
If your CPUs are getting that hot, something is wrong. I freak out when various CPUs get much above 57C.
It depends on processor and usage.
A G4 is probably on the order of 50 to 55C at idle, but upwards of 65C or more under heavy usage (games, encoding, etc.).
On the other hand, an AMD Athlon 1.4GHz (possibly one of the most power INefficient processors of all time, and the one in my desktop at the moment) can get up to 85 to 90C and up under heavy usage. Pretty much all of the current AMD processors will cook themselves in a matter of seconds if powered on without a heatsink and fan.
Jason
Joseph Crowe wrote:
On Thu, 20 May 2004, George Williams wrote:
The CPUs may be in the range of 75 to 95 C. I think the return to copper conductors (vs. aluminium, which oxidises faster) is, at least in part, due to the higher run temperatures nowadays.
If your CPUs are getting that hot, something is wrong. I freak out when various CPUs get much above 57C.
Joseph Crowe wrote:
On Thu, 20 May 2004, George Williams wrote:
The CPUs may be in the range of 75 to 95 C. I think the return to copper conductors (vs. aluminium, which oxidises faster) is, at least in part, due to the higher run temperatures nowadays.
If your CPUs are getting that hot, something is wrong. I freak out when various CPUs get much above 57C.
Mine aren't, but check the specs. Slap an LM34CZ chip on it and see how hot it is. The new dual 3.5s are even worse.