Hard Drive Bay 4 Overheating.

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Hard Drive Bay 4 Overheating.

I recently pulled the hard drives (setup as a RAID array) out of a Mac Pro because of a failed drive. After testing the drive that had occupied bay 4 it was discovered that it had a peak temperature of 70 degrees Celsius. With the new drives in, I noticed that the temperature of the drive in bay 4 is slightly higher than the others, in fact the temperature of the hard drives closer to the back are higher than the drives closer to the front.

I need to figure out if there is a problem with this system before another drive gets toasted. Has anyone had this issue before, and if so how did you resolve it?

Thanks!

Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jun 4, 2012 12:55 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 4, 2012 1:18 PM in response to Mr. Shannon

The bays on most Mac Pros have a metal tab underneath the SATA connector, on the motherboard itself. I believe that tab connects to a temperature sensor.

If the metal tab makes contact with a metal part of the drive, the Mac can sense the temperature and boost the fans when it gets too hot. If it is not making contact, why not?

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Answer 2

The hatter

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Jun 4, 2012 2:00 PM in response to Mr. Shannon

That has usually been warmer - above PCI slots and other cards, away from fans and of course heat tends to rise to top.

A few *C but below 42*C right?

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Answer 3

Mr. Shannon Author

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Jun 5, 2012 5:38 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

...

If the metal tab makes contact with a metal part of the drive, the Mac can sense the temperature and boost the fans when it gets too hot. If it is not making contact, why not?

I don't think this is the problem, the hard drive bay temperature sensors are giving reasonable temperature readings of about 5 degrees below the internal hard drive temperature readings.

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Answer 4

Mr. Shannon Author

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Jun 5, 2012 5:40 AM in response to The hatter

The hatter wrote:

...

A few *C but below 42*C right?

At this moment, yes. But the peak temperature on the drive in bay 4 is 45 degrees Celsius and the drive that used to be in that slot (now a paper weight) recorded a peak temperature of 70 degrees Celsius.

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