50X CDROM OVERHEATING

[TWENTY]

My 50x cd rom is really warm, when I take my cd's out of the rom they are hot to the touch and I can smell the warm plastic.

The tray itself is hot as well.

Is there anything that I can do about this, is this normal?

Also if i'm playing starcraft, the game will stop while the cd decides to spin up
(usually takes about 5 seconds to get to the point where it can access data)

This is really frustrating and is causing me some concern.

I'm running a amdk6-2 350 running at 350 with 64 megs of ram if that is pertinent.

[jl123]

Yes i've wondered that myself. I also play starcraft and this games always uses the cd for the music. I have a 8X DVD-ROM and when i take out my cd it's also hot to the touch. At first i thought you were talking about the drive overheating. Mine also gets to the point where it smells like warm plastic. I'm just waiting for mine to mess up so i can go complain to Hewlett Packard Could it just be the speed of these drives that causes it to heat up so much????? We could use some help. Because i know how concerned this guy is because it's my problem too. I don't want to have to wait for Hewlett Packard to send me another drive or a new computer hehe.

Could one of those hard drive coolers work for a cd-rom/dvd ????

~Joel(jl123)

[Gutter Ball]

Here's what I did. I have 3 51/4 slots on my case, 2 are used up by my CDRom and my burner. My burner is in the top slot and my CD is in the 3rd slot. I popped off the middle slot cover, found a couple of cpu fans, made some legs for them(out of wood screws, if you're afraid of scratches, just use some electric tape on the heads), put them ontop on my CDrom and replaced the slot cover. My CD's still run warm, but MUCH cooler than before.


I used to use one of those hard drive coolers with 2 case fans pointing down, but I found the case of the hard drive cooler actually traps more heat, so I went back to this way.
If you don't have a spare slot, this is what I did for my Godkid. I moved his CDrom to the top slot and put his burner right under it. Then I used one of those PCI metal slot covers to make an arm, attached 2 cpu fans(side by side), and positioned it so they're blowing across the top of the cd-rom. I used the cdrom mounting screws to hold the arm in place.

If you want to have air flowing over and under the cdrom, just attach the fans using the top corner of one, and the bottom corner of the other one to make them cover more area. I know this goes against the proper "air flow", but hey..it works Good luck!


[This message has been edited by Gutter Ball (edited 06-07-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Gutter Ball (edited 06-07-2000).]

[jl123]

Now that's what i call a McGuyverism. You know the guy that can build a house out of toothpicks.

So seriously the cd-rom just needs better cooling. Ok i'll try that.

Hey will this little gadget work??


P.S. Tripod isn't the best

~Joel(jl123)

[This message has been edited by jl123 (edited 06-07-2000).]

[This message has been edited by jl123 (edited 06-07-2000).]

[UncaDanno]

Joel,

That "turbo" may work.

What I did was get a cheapo ($10) drive cooler that has two fans that sit right at the bay opening. And mounted it between my CDROM and my burner. If I copied from one to the other without copying to the HD first, the reader would overheat.

Things to be sure of, though: make sure that your fans don't fight each other. My PS fan (on the back of the case) blows out. I have another case fan on the front that blows in. So I have a (theoretical) in-the-front-out-the-back flow. When I put in the "drive cooler", I discovered that it blew out. No good. The little fans just sat there and cavitated. They were fighting against the bigger fan that also blew out. So I popped 'em off the housing and flipped 'em around.

Haven't had an overheat problem since.

[Gutter Ball]

Hey Joel, can't see the picture But let us know which way you're going to use the fan and if it works for you Ah yes, Mcgyver, that show was cool! Mr. Gadget himself

Uncadanno: I just ordered one of those drive coolers to use as a cdrom cooler! I figured air blowing front to back, directly over the cdrom and into my exhaust would have a better cooling effect than to have the fans blowing down on top of the CDrom. I also ordered that HUGE card cooler thing

[This message has been edited by Gutter Ball (edited 06-07-2000).]

[jl123]

Ok i got a new pic up there. It's clearer too. It's something like 200kb. Well i'm not sure it both of the fans blow the same way. But if they don't i guess i could take it apart and flip it over. I was thinking about putting it on top of my dvd drive. I would have to move it down one slot though. So the turbo would be between the burner and dvd. Good idea?

~Joel(jl123)

[Axel]

Antec makes a similar 5.25 case fan - I run it in my system.

Rather than just having a fan blowing across the top of the CD-ROM drive - here's a better approach -

Get the largest metal heatsink you can find - a small tube of superglue, and a tube of thermal paste. Apply a very thin even coat of thermal paste in the middle of the heat sink where it will touch the CD-ROM drive leaving the corners free of paste. Apply a tiny drop of superglue to the corners - attach to the metal top of the CD-ROM drive. Attach a CPU fan to the top of the heat sink after the superglue has set up.

You'll get much better thermal transfer that way.

Next - There are those people who suggest that a case should have more fans blowing air into the case than drawing air out of the case - this to maintain a "positive" case pressure to keep dust from migrating into the cracks....

Next - if you are using an "old CD", and you hear it humming in the drive - it means the CD is not properly balanced. The high speed of the drive will cause the CD to wobble and that's usually when drives break or CD's get damaged. This typically happens when you put an early 1990's music CD into a high speed drive. You hear a low hum and he drive and the CD get hot.

next - sounds like your CD is configured to spin down after a certain no activity delay - this is good and bad - bad for games that don't always access the CD, good because it means forgetting a CD in the drive won't burn your system to pieces.....

Last - if you don't have issues with kids, ferrets, or cats, leave the CPU case off - it's only there to protect the components from physical shock and dust anyway.

That's all that comes to mind.

[jl123]

Well right now i have a HP and it sounds like an airplane. But i'll still try it.

Thanks,
~Joel(jl123)

[Gutter Ball]

Axel! That's a great idea! Except I wouldn't super glue the heatsink(s) down! I'm going to find some heatsinks, mount the fans on top of them and just use the thermal paste to hold them down. Or maybe just use 1 heatsink with 2 fans...hmmm...I'll let you know how this works out! Right now I'm pretty satisfied with the cooling...but with your idea too...cool!

[jl123]

Yeah it takes a while for the pic to get up. It's like 700Kb. I'm sorry i'll scan another that is smaller in size. I have dsl and it still takes a while to get up there.

Sorry
~Joel(jl123)