Yesterday I came to the machine, which is always on, but when idle, cuts
off the monitor, and nothing would happen (nothing would display) when
I used the mouse or keyboard. The first two attempted reboots didn't get
Windows to load, but on the third, Windows started the system performed
normally. Since then, everything seems to be okay, and I can reboot
without a problem. I'm not sure what happened, but I *did* increase the
size of the pagefile yesterday, and I postponed the necessary reboot.
The case is open and I can touch the hard drives. Yesterday during and
after the failure, they all *felt* to be hotter than they should be. I
have two Western Digitals and a Seagate. Looking at the HD mfg sites, I
learned a modern HDs can operate up to 60 degrees C. I got this utility,
SIGuardian v 1.7 trial http://www.siguardian.com/products/s...ian/index.html , to get the
temperature and it shows the temperature of the drives, but it
misidentifies all my drives as being Seagate. This makes me suspect that
the temp reading provided by the app may be incorrect too.
Today, SIGuardian shows all the drives at 34 C. Yesterday, when I looked
just after the event, they were almost at 50 C. Perplexing.
Can I trust the temp values given by SIGuardian even though it
incorrectly identifies the manufacturers of the HDs?
Is there another utility to monitor the HD temps?
Or is there a direct way through Windows to see the temp of the HDs?
Shuttle AN35N Ultra V1.1, AMD Athlon XP 2800+
Windows XP Home SP1
Drive #1 - WDC WD16 00JB-00GVA0 SCSI Disk Device (149 GB)
Drive #2 - ST312002 6A SCSI Disk Device (111 GB), System and Boot Drive
Drive #3 - WDC WD80 0JB-00ETA0 SCSI Disk Device (74 GB)
My guess is that a software bug or malware locked your system into
some sort of loop that included disk I/O. Rather than worry about the
disk drives, which most likely survived without injury, you should try
to discover what locked up the system in the first place, as it may
happen again, unless some very unusual set of circumstances came
together to cause it.
You can use something like smartctl to run tests on the drives and
check results to make sure they are still running okay (it will also
give you their operating temperatures).
--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
> Yesterday I came to the machine, which is always on, but when
> idle, cuts off the monitor, and nothing would happen (nothing would
> display) when I used the mouse or keyboard. The first two attempted
> reboots didn't get Windows to load, but on the third, Windows started
> the system performed normally. Since then, everything seems to be
> okay, and I can reboot without a problem. I'm not sure what happened,
What exactly happened with the failed reboots ?
> but I *did* increase the size of the pagefile yesterday,
Generally not a good idea to have a fixed sized one.
> and I postponed the necessary reboot.
Not sure what you mean by that.
> The case is open and I can touch the hard drives. Yesterday
> during and after the failure, they all *felt* to be hotter than
> they should be. I have two Western Digitals and a Seagate.
Likely all mounted adjacent with no space between them.
Drives do get pretty hot when installed like that.
> Looking at the HD mfg sites, I learned a modern
> HDs can operate up to 60 degrees C.
I wouldnt run them at that temp for long myself.
> I got this utility, SIGuardian v 1.7 trial
> http://www.siguardian.com/products/s...ian/index.html ,
> to get the temperature and it shows the temperature of the
> drives, but it misidentifies all my drives as being Seagate.
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:28:15 +0200, Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com>
wrote:
>My guess is that a software bug or malware locked your system into
>some sort of loop that included disk I/O. Rather than worry about the
>disk drives, which most likely survived without injury, you should try
>to discover what locked up the system in the first place, as it may
>happen again, unless some very unusual set of circumstances came
>together to cause it.
>
>You can use something like smartctl to run tests on the drives and
>check results to make sure they are still running okay (it will also
>give you their operating temperatures).
Open Task Manager and look at the process table for the CPU hog.
Keep TM reduced in the tray and watch the green graphic to see when
CPU usage is high.
- Rod Speed -
> What exactly happened with the failed reboots ?
- Nehmo -
Hi again, Ron! It went all the way through to the point just before when
the initial Windows XP screen usually displays, but it didn't, and the
screen remained blank. I waited a while, then tried again.
> > but I *did* increase the size of the pagefile yesterday,
- Rod Speed -
> Generally not a good idea to have a fixed sized one.
- Nehmo -
Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Performance Settings > Advanced
tab > Virtual memory > Change > The options are Custom size, System
managed size, and No paging file. On the bottom of that tab it
recommends 2302 MB. Mine was less, so I increased Maximum size to 2502
and Initial size to 2302 MB. Should I have gone with System managed
size?
> > and I postponed the necessary reboot.
- Rod Speed -
> Not sure what you mean by that.
- Nehmo -
A message came up that said I would have to reboot for the changes to
take effect and gave the option to do so now; I declined.
- Rod Speed -
> Likely all [the hard drives] mounted adjacent with no space between
them.
Nehmo wrote:
> Yesterday I came to the machine, which is always on, but when idle, cuts
snip...
> http://www.siguardian.com/products/s...ian/index.html , to get the
> temperature and it shows the temperature of the drives, but it
> misidentifies all my drives as being Seagate. This makes me suspect that
> the temp reading provided by the app may be incorrect too.
snip...
If the software misidentifies the drives it MAY be getting the
temperatures right. Then again it might be confused about them too. I'd
suggest that you give a different utility a shot. One easy and useful
one is Everest Home.
It is completely free and seems to get all my drives right on various
systems no matter how bizarre the configuration. Then again it may not
read the CPU and other temperatures exactly right. Or so other Shuttle
users have reported. On my SB65G2 it crosses up the temperatures of the
CPU and PWM.
But I'm curious, how did you manage to get THREE HDs into a Shuttle?
Mine has space for one or two (if I get rid of the floppy/flash reader),
but three would mean sacrificing the optical drive too.
Nehmo <nehmo54@hotmail.com> wrote
> - Rod Speed -
>> What exactly happened with the failed reboots ?
> - Nehmo -
> Hi again, Ron! It went all the way through to the point just before
> when the initial Windows XP screen usually displays, but it didn't,
> and the screen remained blank. I waited a while, then tried again.
OK, that usually happens when one of the
drivers cant setup the hardware its controlling.
You should be able to see which hardware it is by turning the
log on in the menu where you elect to start in safe mode.
>>> but I *did* increase the size of the pagefile yesterday,
> - Rod Speed -
>> Generally not a good idea to have a fixed sized one.
> - Nehmo -
> Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Performance Settings >
> Advanced tab > Virtual memory > Change > The options are Custom
> size, System managed size, and No paging file. On the bottom of that
> tab it recommends 2302 MB. Mine was less, so I increased Maximum size
> to 2502 and Initial size to 2302 MB. Should I have gone with System
> managed size?
Yes. But its unlikely to be the problem.
>>> and I postponed the necessary reboot.
>
> - Rod Speed -
>> Not sure what you mean by that.
> - Nehmo -
> A message came up that said I would have to reboot for the
> changes to take effect and gave the option to do so now; I declined.
OK, that just means that the new size wont be used till the next reboot.
> - Rod Speed -
>> Likely all [the hard drives] mounted adjacent
>> with no space between them.
> - Nehmo -
> I have that app. I didn't think it did temps. I had been looking under
> the wrong section. It's under Computer > Sensor I now discovered.
>>> Is there another utility to monitor the HD temps?
> - Rod Speed –
>> Yes, plenty, I like Everest.
> - Nehmo -
> Now that I see what Everest shows, it seems
> to be giving the same readings as SIGuardian.
> From Everest:
> Computer > Sensor:
> Temperatures
> Motherboard 24 °C (75 °F)
> CPU 31 °C (88 °F)
> PWM 29 °C (84 °F)
> ST3120026A 33 °C (91 °F)
> ST3120026A 36 °C (97 °F)
> ST3120026A 33 °C (91 °F)
Those numbers are all fine.
Odd, must be some reason the hard drive controller stops
the software from seeing the drive ID properly in that situation.
> But under
> Storage > Physical Drives:
>
> Drive #1 - WDC WD16 00JB-00GVA0 SCSI Disk Device (149 GB)
> Drive #2 - ST312002 6A SCSI Disk Device (111 GB)
> Drive #3 - WDC WD80 0JB-00ETA0 SCSI Disk Device (74 GB)
> Odd. The temp section gives the same Seagate id number
> for all the drives, but under storage, they’re different.
Yeah, likely due to the SCSI controller.
Looks like one bit of flakey hardware is the reason for the
reboot failures. The log should tell you which hardware it is.
- John McGaw -
> But I'm curious, how did you manage to get THREE HDs into a Shuttle?
> Mine has space for one or two (if I get rid of the floppy/flash
reader),
> but three would mean sacrificing the optical drive too.
- Nehmo -
The Shuttle AN35N Ultra board http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=215 has 2 ATA connectors,
and supports 4 devices. I have 2 HDs on one cable, and 1 HD and the
Optical on the other.
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 22:20:15 GMT, "Nehmo"
<nehmo54@hotmail.com> wrote:
>recommends 2302 MB. Mine was less, so I increased Maximum size to 2502
>and Initial size to 2302 MB. Should I have gone with System managed
>size?
WIndows recommendation is logically broken, the more memory
a box has the lower the size needs be.
The ideal here is to gauge the largest your pagefile ever
gets to be, and assigning it a fixed minimum that is
slightly larger than that. One random suggestion might be
512MB-1GB, perhaps large if you do some REALLY big jobs on
the system but if you do, you know it already, and probably
also know that you need more physical memory so there was
never a time you exceeded that 512MB initial figure in
actual utilization rather than mere allocation.
This is with the drive defragged so it is (as much as
possible) contiguous space. Set the maximum FAR above any
realistic figure beacause that is only a upper boundary you
never want to reach, like almost all of the remaining free
space on that HDD parititon.
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:28:15 +0200, Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com>
wrote:
>My guess is that a software bug or malware locked your system into
>some sort of loop that included disk I/O. Rather than worry about the
>disk drives, which most likely survived without injury, you should try
>to discover what locked up the system in the first place, as it may
>happen again, unless some very unusual set of circumstances came
>together to cause it.
>
>You can use something like smartctl to run tests on the drives and
>check results to make sure they are still running okay (it will also
>give you their operating temperatures).
I think you'll find in time it's more likely windows ****ing things up
by trying to go into hybernation mode or the like and stalling as it
is commonly know to do.
"Nehmo" <nehmo54@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Q8z1f.92021$32.82392@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com...
> Yesterday I came to the machine, which is always on, but when idle, cuts
> off the monitor, and nothing would happen (nothing would display) when
> I used the mouse or keyboard. The first two attempted reboots didn't get
> Windows to load, but on the third, Windows started the system performed
> normally. Since then, everything seems to be okay, and I can reboot
> without a problem. I'm not sure what happened, but I *did* increase the
> size of the pagefile yesterday, and I postponed the necessary reboot.
>
> The case is open and I can touch the hard drives. Yesterday during and
> after the failure, they all *felt* to be hotter than they should be. I
> have two Western Digitals and a Seagate. Looking at the HD mfg sites, I
> learned a modern HDs can operate up to 60 degrees C. I got this utility,
> SIGuardian v 1.7 trial
> http://www.siguardian.com/products/s...ian/index.html , to get the
> temperature and it shows the temperature of the drives, but it
> misidentifies all my drives as being Seagate. This makes me suspect that
> the temp reading provided by the app may be incorrect too.
>
> Today, SIGuardian shows all the drives at 34 C. Yesterday, when I looked
> just after the event, they were almost at 50 C. Perplexing.
>
> Can I trust the temp values given by SIGuardian even though it
> incorrectly identifies the manufacturers of the HDs?
> Is there another utility to monitor the HD temps?
I use Motherboard Monitor (MBM 5) and am pleased with it.
In article <m05ok1h91tnoa79389kfvd16a7k58l14f1@4ax.com>, "Ed >:-)
\"Archive\"" <> says...
> On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:28:15 +0200, Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >My guess is that a software bug or malware locked your system into
> >some sort of loop that included disk I/O. Rather than worry about the
> >disk drives, which most likely survived without injury, you should try
> >to discover what locked up the system in the first place, as it may
> >happen again, unless some very unusual set of circumstances came
> >together to cause it.
> >
> >You can use something like smartctl to run tests on the drives and
> >check results to make sure they are still running okay (it will also
> >give you their operating temperatures).
>
> I think you'll find in time it's more likely windows ****ing things up
> by trying to go into hybernation mode or the like and stalling as it
> is commonly know to do.
>
I use Everest Home and it works quite well
Good question. I've recently had the motherboard changed from a GigaByte to
a Foxconn K7S741MG-6L / K7S741GXMG-6L. Since then, Sensors 2 and 3 of MBM
5, to my susprise, report the names and temperatures of both HDDs. This
didn't happen with the GigaByte board. That's all I know. MBM 5 is available
from http://mbm.livewiredev.com/.
Andy
"Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:ec3pk1dimh1qf0icjets5qgeva50ijgr64@4ax.com...
> Andy writes:
>
>> I use Motherboard Monitor (MBM 5) and am pleased with it.
>
> How does MBM know the temperature of disk drives?
>
> --
> Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
> Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote
> > Andy writes
>
> >> I use Motherboard Monitor (MBM 5) and am pleased with it.
>
> > How does MBM know the temperature of disk drives?
>
> It uses the SMART temperature with hard drives.
How do I configure it? I have MBM 5.
--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
> > > How does MBM know the temperature of disk drives?
> >
> > It uses the SMART temperature with hard drives.
>
> How do I configure it? I have MBM 5.
On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 12:59:22 -0400, "Peter" <peterfoxghost@yahoo.ca>
wrote:
>> > > How does MBM know the temperature of disk drives?
>> >
>> > It uses the SMART temperature with hard drives.
>>
>> How do I configure it? I have MBM 5.
>
>First check if your HD support SMART:
>http://www.passmark.com/ftp/diskcheckup.zip
Or you can use Everest Home Edition which is free.
Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote
> Rod Speed writes
>> Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Andy writes
>>>> I use Motherboard Monitor (MBM 5) and am pleased with it.
>>> How does MBM know the temperature of disk drives?
>> It uses the SMART temperature with hard drives.
> How do I configure it? I have MBM 5.
Its a little counter intuitive.
There is a tick box in the MBM config to use the smart temp from
the hard drives in the General tab of settings, right down the bottom.
Once that is ticked, MBM has to be restarted before that tick takes
effect. Once you have restarted MBM, the hard drives that have
SMART temp are available in the list of sensors you can select
from with the temperature sensors.
> Its a little counter intuitive.
>
> There is a tick box in the MBM config to use the smart temp from
> the hard drives in the General tab of settings, right down the bottom.
> Once that is ticked, MBM has to be restarted before that tick takes
> effect. Once you have restarted MBM, the hard drives that have
> SMART temp are available in the list of sensors you can select
> from with the temperature sensors.
>
> Its covered in the MBM help.
It works! Very cool! Thanks!
--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
> My HDs support SMART, but I can't figure which sensor
> to associate with which on the Settings of MBM.
Yeah, the user interface is rather counter intuitive.
You can put it on any temperature display you like,
and you only see the hard drives in the list of sensors
you can attach to each temperature display after you
tick the main box and restart MBM.
> But I am getting the temps using the other programs.
> I'm just trying to get MBM to work now.
"Andy" <kanadaiy@telus.net> wrote in message news:yra3f.20389$yS6.1449@clgrps12
> Good question. I've recently had the motherboard changed from a GigaByte to
> a Foxconn K7S741MG-6L / K7S741GXMG-6L. Since then, Sensors 2 and 3 of MBM
> 5, to my susprise, report the names and temperatures of both HDDs. This
> didn't happen with the GigaByte board. That's all I know. MBM 5 is available
> from http://mbm.livewiredev.com/.
>
> Andy
>
>
> "Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote in message news:ec3pk1dimh1qf0icjets5qgeva50ijgr64@4ax.com...
> > Andy writes:
> >
> > > I use Motherboard Monitor (MBM 5) and am pleased with it.
> >
> > How does MBM know the temperature of disk drives?
Wild guess: because the author programmed it that way?
> >
> > --
> > Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
"Peter" <peterfoxghost@yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:Hib3f.5087$S43.630122@news20.bellglobal.com
> > > > How does MBM know the temperature of disk drives?
> > >
> > > It uses the SMART temperature with hard drives.
> >
> > How do I configure it? I have MBM 5.
>
> First check if your HD support SMART:
> http://www.passmark.com/ftp/diskcheckup.zip
Which is of no use if the driver doesn't support it.
Hard Drive Temperature 
Linear Mode
