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From: gordon@eecea.eece.ksu.edu (Dwight Gordon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Effects of Heat on Hard Drives
Message-ID: <1990Jul1.150929.24789@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Date: 1 Jul 90 15:09:29 GMT
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  I missed the initial thread of this discussion, so please be somewhat
forgiving if I'm mentioning something that has already been discussed.
  I too have an XT-class machine nearly "loaded to the gills" with
floppies (2in and 2out), hard drives (2in), and cards.  My unit was
situated horizontally (standard desktop configuration) with my
monitor on top.  The two hard drives (HH) were stacked on the left
and the two floppies (HH internal) were stacked on the right.

Initial Observations -
  1.  My lower hard drive (system drive) would sometimes fail.  This
  failure only happened after the system had been running for a "long"
  period of time.  To "repair" it required that I turn the unit off
  and on (a warm-boot didn't work!?!).
  2.  The monitor base was something of an effective insulator.  The
  case under the monitor (which just happened to be at the location of
  the hard drives) was noticeably warm to the touch.
  3.  My hard drives (ST225s) would sometimes "squeal."  It sounded
  like a questionably-lubricated bearing on the spindle motor.

I suspected thermal problems and changed the location of the hard drives
and the floppies (internal) by placing the hard drives on the lower
positions of the drive bays (horizontally) with the floppies above
them.  The floppies have far less mass and allow some air motion.

New observations-
  1.  In the 6-weeks since I made this change the hard drive "failure"
  has not been repeated.  It previously occured at least once each
  day.
  2.  The system case under the monitor is no longer significantly
  warmer than the rest of the case.
  3.  I've noticed no significant increase in failures with regard to
  the floppies sitting above the hard drives.  However, I don't use
  those floppies that often.
  4.  My hard drive "squeal" has gone away (at least for the moment :-).

- Dwight -

Dwight W. Gordon, Ph.D.  |   913-532-5600    |   gordon@eecea.eece.ksu.edu
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department |     dwgordon@ksuvm.bitnet
Kansas State University - Durland Hall       | rutgers!ksuvax1!eecea!gordon
Manhattan, KS 66506      | {pyramid,ucsd}!ncr-sd!ncrwic!ksuvax1!eecea!gordon