Great ideas so far.

At the moment, with AVG running, I am at 45 processes. I also have disabled many services and tried to be as conservative as possible to increase boot times, and reduce any unnecessary stress. I am waiting on a few SATA cables so I can transfer data between my HDDs, then troubleshoot it.

RAM would be slightly harder to troubleshoot if only because of how expensive it 6gigs (or 3) of DDR3 is. If it comes down to it, I'll check each stick individually, but that'd be such a hassle. That is one reason I kept RAM for last.

One person on Tomshardware suggested that reducing the heat from my graphics card, via underclocking, might help with any overheating it might cause to my HDD.  Would this seem like a reasonable idea? Consider how good the air flow is, and the number of fans, would the heat from my graphics card really be affecting my hard drive that much?

(05/05/2010 11:06 PM)Assassinator Wrote:  Just run memtest 86, pretty simple.

For some reason, I had a problem with memtest 86 a while back, and for the life of me I can't remember what it was. I always associate RAM troubleshooting with a hassle now. Eh, must not have been that big if I can't remember the specific reason. I'll try out the sticks.

(05/05/2010 11:06 PM)Assassinator Wrote:  Is your GPU like right next to your HDDs?  Is air from the GPU fan blowing into the box or out the back?

There is a good foot and a half, at an angle between the HDDs and GPU. My GPU has a case fan blowing right onto it (into the box, not straight out), and the air all goes through the fans below the hard drives. I wonder if putting the hard drives between the fans that are pushing out the air would be a good idea?

Here's a crude drawing:




And yes, I know the air flow is not going in that exact manner. More likely, it is circling in the main cabinet more, but I don't know if hot air is staying up with the hard drives, causing a problem, or not.


Here's the what the bays for the hard drives look like:

(05/05/2010 11:12 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  HDDs aren't that susceptible to heat from what I know.
Do you have a 10k RPM drive?

15k RPM drives used in servers are known to produce a lot of heat, but they seem to handle it fine.  IDK if they have any special things applied to them to handle heat better though.

You can try underclocking the GPU if you want - doesn't do any damage.

Well, can't hurt to have a 2nd hard drive, regardless of the results.  I may just have to check RAM.

My current HDD is 7200 RPM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6822136284

My temporary replacement is going to have half the cache, and less storage:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6822145215

(06/05/2010 12:01 AM)Assassinator Wrote:  

(05/05/2010 11:23 PM)Hellgiver Wrote:  I wonder if putting the hard drives between the fans that are pushing out the air would be a good idea?

I have my HDDs positioned like that too.  However, it's different because for my case the air enters at the front and exits at the back.  So the only air passing the HDDs are cold air from outside.

Actually, why does your case eject air through the front?  That's weird... because the hot parts are generally towards the middle (CPU) or back (GPU, PSU), so it should keep the internal temps cooler if the air also comes out the back.  And if you plan on placing the box on the table right next to the keyboard like I do... wouldn't you get hot air in (near) your face?

---

Anyway, I don' really think the air should be causing any trouble to your HDD.  Maybe unless if your GPU runs extremely HOT like SkyDX's (~100 celcius, if I remember correctly).

Well, I am actually to the left of the case, which is right next to my monitor. It is blowing out far enough from my face that I don't feel it. Also, the air that I feel if I put my hand over it is all cool. However, combining it with my 40 inch LCD in a ~16x10 room, and you'll get a lot of heat if at least one fan isn't on, and the door is open.

(06/05/2010 12:43 AM)Assassinator Wrote:  

(06/05/2010 12:40 AM)Hellgiver Wrote:  Also, the air that I feel if I put my hand over it is all cool.

Well, then that means the air blowing past your HDD is also cool, then you certainly don't need to worry about your GPU screwing up your HDDs.

:)

Alright cool! I'll check RAM this weekend, when I have some alone time. Also, with some luck, the SATA cables will be in by early next week, so I can mess with 2 variables. I'm going to nail this. Thanks for the help guys.