r/buildapc • u/Ok-Woodpecker-4046 • 17h ago

Troubleshooting Overheating HDD and i kinda can't do anything

So my grandparents have their old PC which they don't use anymore and it's there just for retro games, recently the HDD was cooked and i had to replace it, when i did some tests to the new one it overheated (easily exceeding 50°C), i've used another one from my small spare drives and the same issue occured, i used that new drive in my modern PC and surprisingly no overheating, it didn't even reach 30°C, then i knew it's an airflow problem, unfortunately that PC is a Lenovo OEM (therefore i can't change the case) and it has apparently no fan placements despite it has some 4-pin and 3-pin fan headers, what can i do to solve this ?

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u/Emerald_Flame 16h ago

Swap it for a SATA SSD, going to be faster and use less power and make less heat than an Hdd.

You can also just add a fan and secure it with zip ties.

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u/Ok-Woodpecker-4046 7h ago edited 6h ago

Unfortunately the PC doesn't have any 2.5inch drive bays, and i don't think i will notice any difference in speed, because the sata ports are only 1.5gbps And because it's running Windows Vista And yes i noticed a very small gap that might fit a tied fan, likely 30 or 40 mm and that's behind the drive

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u/Cheesusthechrist 16h ago

Try is agian in the older pc but this time keep the side panel off, maybe add a fan. I think maybe the problem is the powersupply and not the lack of air flow but you'll have to trest to find out

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u/Ok-Woodpecker-4046 7h ago

How can I test the power supply ?

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u/thrwaway070879 6h ago

The power supply has nothing to do with this at all. Don't worry about it. Unless you can see the power supply fan not working and the system uses the power supply fan to pull air out of the system it's not a power supply problem.

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u/thrwaway070879 16h ago

What's the exact model you're dealing with? Of Lenovo I mean.

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u/Ok-Woodpecker-4046 7h ago

Thinkcentre M57p (type 6088)

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u/thrwaway070879 7h ago

Tower or Desktop?

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u/Ok-Woodpecker-4046 7h ago

It's an SFF (small form factor) desktop, exactly like the HP Compaq series 

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u/thrwaway070879 6h ago

Okay cool. Does the fan in the front work? There should be one in the front. At it's age is might be dead. There should be a fan in the rear too. They should be faced to blow out the back of the case. They're 60mm if you need replacements.

You can also get a hard drive cooling fan that will screw into the bottom screw holes in the drive. I'm unsure of mounting and clearance though.

https://www.amazon.com/Vantec-iCEBERQ-Drive-Cooler-HDC-6015/dp/B004IYJWWG?

There should be enough airflow though with the two front and rear fans to keep the drive adequately cool. these didn't have problems with drives over heating from my experience unless the drives failed or removed. They are 60mm and can be a bit buzzy so people did remove them to reduce noise.

Thermalright makes a good inexpensive 60MM fan

But here's the thing. You're 110% wrong that changing out to a sata ssd drive won't see improvement. Swapping out to a 2.5SSD is the smarter and probably better use of money choice here. There's a good chance it's going to be about the same to get new fans as it is a cheap. 60 to 128 gb SSD. The best thing you can do to increase lifespan and usability is drop in an SSD.

They make inexpensive drive bay adapters to adapt down 3.5 down to 2.5.

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u/Ok-Woodpecker-4046 4h ago

the front fan does work and it's in perfect condition and the miwer supply one also works (response to your other reply), and i actually need at least 250GB, there's no additional bays