Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

0xprateek · 2021-11-30 11:35:21

Hello,

I have recently installed Arch Linux on my device Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55 after following the installation guide present on the Arch website.

I've noticed that my hard disk temperature and spin rate increase gradually after some time I start my laptop and start using it. My hard disk temperature reaches around 45-49 after this temperature the heat on the surface of the laptop where the hard disk is present also increases (Every time when my laptop hits this temperature I shut down so I don't know if it can go beyond this or not ). The spinning of the hard disk also increases and is related to temperature increase when the temperature hits around 37-39 I start to feel the vibration on the surface of the laptop where the hard disk is present and after some time it starts to make small noise which I think is when the hard disk reaches max speed it happens due to that.

For measuring temperature I use

 sudo hddtemp /dev/sda6

and for measuring speed I don't know any commands but I have checked which processes are writing to the disk when the spin rate is high and found none of the processes are doing disk read and write.

So far, I have used powertop and hdpram -S to 1 for reducing the sleep time of the disk and hdpram -B to 254 and 128 for reducing the performance of the harddisk but nothing helped.

Please help me out.

Thanks in advance.

seth · 2021-11-30 15:42:13

I don't know any commands but I have checked which processes are writing to the disk

How? Try https://archlinux.org/packages/community/any/iotop/
Typically it's gonna be some file tracker or anything else building a database. 50°C is pretty hot for a spinning disc, though.

0xprateek · 2021-12-01 06:46:26

I have checked using iotop there is no such process which is writing or reading from the disk.

sabroad · 2021-12-01 08:46:23

If the HDD is failing then the disk could be making its own activity trying to recover sectors.

Run a test (long) to check if the drive is failing.

0xprateek · 2021-12-01 17:52:41

It outputs the results as PASSED

seth · 2021-12-01 18:02:55

Can you please post the full smart status (smartctl -a /dev/sdwhatever)?

If the drive activity is not because of IO (iotop reports *nothing*, no constant IO at all?) nor a broken drive… do you have a parallel windows installation?

sabroad · 2021-12-02 00:52:59

There are reports of hot PCH when the Acer Nitro has SATA connected.

What does lm-sensors report about the temperature? Please post full output.

ewaller · 2021-12-02 02:19:34

0xprateek wrote:

... and spin rate increase gradually after some time I start my laptop and start using it. ... The spinning of the hard disk also increases and is related to temperature

I am extremely skeptical of that. I am not a drive designer, but I am pretty certain that is servoed with a strong feedback loop based upon the recovered clock from the read heads.
45 to 50C is not that hot. I'd start to worry closer to 60C. If that vibration were from the platter, the drive would most definitely be toast. I am pretty sure what you are feeling is the heads seeking.

There is certainly a great deal of disk activity going on. Perhaps it is page fault thrashing. When it goes to this state, what is the output of free ?

Last edited by ewaller (2021-12-02 02:20:23)

Arch Linux

#1 2021-11-30 11:35:21

Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

#2 2021-11-30 15:42:13

Re: Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

#3 2021-12-01 06:46:26

Re: Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

#4 2021-12-01 08:46:23

Re: Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

#5 2021-12-01 17:52:41

Re: Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

#6 2021-12-01 18:02:55

Re: Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

#7 2021-12-02 00:52:59

Re: Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

#8 2021-12-02 02:19:34

Re: Hard disk temprature and spining rate increases gradually

Board footer