Hard drive overheats when laptop running on AC power

Here's the solution:

laptop-mode-tools is controlling power management for your hard drive, and you need to configure it appropriately for your situation.

Open /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf for editing with root privileges, and around line 276 (on Ubuntu 12.04), change this value to 600

NOLM_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=7200

This is the amount of time before your drive is told to "spin down" or idle on AC power. 10 minutes with no read/write activity is reasonable.

And around lines 290-291 (on Ubuntu 12.04), change both these values to 1:

LM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=254

NOLM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=254

These set the power management level granted to the drive, with 1 being "full" power management, and 254 being "almost zero" power management. The latter setting is the reason for your temperatures, because you can set the level, but how the drive manages power at a level is entirely up to it -- it completely depends on the implementation in the drive's firmware, and can vary by model, manufacturer, etc.

With the changes, we are now telling the drive to perform the same power management it does while on battery (which is satisfactory for you). This is different from simply allowing the drive to spindown while on AC (as in @EliahKagan's answer), because that would still leave the drive's power management set to near zero at level 254.

How to determine power management level

To find out the current level, while on battery, AC, or any other situation:

sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep Advanced (replace sda appropriately)

Have you tried installing Jupiter? (http://www.webupd8.org/2011/09/jupiter-applet-finally-available-for.html)

set it continuously to 'power on demand' or 'power saving', maybe that spins down the HD

I have it on Precise Pangoling 12.04, works great (although i don't really have your overheating problem...)

Hope it helps

I would like to request you to test this on some other version of Ubuntu (like ubuntu 10.4 or 11.04 or 11.10 - you can use live version of those distro). If the problem still persists,

A. first check your earthing connection because improper earthing always leads to the overheating problem

B. check your A/C adapter because it may be damaged and causing hdd over heat while plugging into the ac source.

c. Check your laptop battery a failing battery caused the problem with the adapter because it could be attempting to "overcharge" the battery, which doesn’t increase the battery’s charge, but, rather radiates the charge as heat energy (this is what is causing your overheating).

i will ask you to remove your laptop battery and then plug it into ac source in-order to check the battery.

Charging your laptop battery generates heat. So when you plug in your AC power, and your laptop battery isn't fully charged (it's previously been running off battery), it will start charging the battery, thus generating heat.

This is why you usually get the fan spinning up when switching to AC power after being on battery, and inevitably the system components will heat up due to the heat from the battery.

The hard drive, being reasonably close to the battery, will probably heat up a bit too. This therefore is a plausible explanation of what you are observing.

There are other things that would cause your laptop to get warmer when it's on AC power, such as various components coming out of a "low power" mode, but the battery charging, IMHO, is a much more significant factor.

You say that your hard drive is "overheating" but only mention that it reaches 60 degrees. In reality, manufacturers usually list 60 degrees as the top of the "safe operating temperature" for 2.5 inch drives. Your laptop manufacturer will have designed your laptop's cooling system so that the most extreme situation (charging battery while stressing CPU, etc) should still cause all components to remain within their safe operating temperature. However, they make a number of assumptions. They assume that your room temperature is a certain value, that you're using the laptop on a solid, flat surface, its ventilation holes aren't blocked, etc. If it's 28 degrees inside and you have the laptop on your lap, then components will exceed their safe operating temperature. Similarly, if the fan fails or is blocked, then it will also.

It's also not unusual for laptops simply to run too hot because they have poor thermal design from the start.

The hard drive manufacturer will have given some "breathing room" in specifying 60 degrees as the top safe operating temperature, which will partially make up for non-ideal cooling situations. That is, if you go up to 65 it shouldn't be "too bad". You probably don't need to worry about imminent death of your laptop. But any heat will reduce the life of your components and the cooler the better. You should look into whether the fan is operating correctly, whether you're using the laptop in a hotter environment than a typical room temperature, and whether you have the laptop on a soft or warm surface or one which will press against the air vents. If using the laptop on your lap, get a solid tray/stand for it to sit on. Some companies sell these with built-in cooling fans which I think is overkill.

To enable hard drive spindown even when running on AC power, press Alt+F2, and run this command:

gconf-editor /apps/gnome-power-manager/disks

This will open the Configuration Editor and bring you directly to the options for automatically spinning down disks. Make sure spindown_enable_ac is checked as well as spindown_enable_battery.

I've had this issue on 4 occasions, since having several laptops since 2007. It didn't matter what brand(Toshiba, HP, Dell, ASUS)

Everything you're talking about is plausible.

My situation was resolved in the following way. As much as I have taken on board ALL the comments that OTHER people have also suggested, realistically all the 4 occasions were resolved after finding the one factor in all of them. When I replaced a NEW battery, the overheating issue wasn't a factor anymore. When I returned the OLD battery, YES I had what everybody complained about. In all 3 occasions I did the following; while assuming the battery was OK because I had often kept the AC connection plugged in, of course seeing the FULL BATTERY image made me feel the BATTERY was fine. It was easy to just go on with whatever I was doing. When I came across the issue with the hard drive overheating, I just happened to have a friend that owns a computer store that gave me a NEW or currently working battery(he tested for as reliable), then plugged that into my laptop. For THAT TEMPORARILY REPLACED battery, the hard drive OVERHEATING issue was pretty much non existent. Curiously, I replaced MY OLD battery that I ASSUMED was fine(because I LOVED to see it FULLY CHARGED), then I pulled out the AC adaptor to allow the laptop to run off the battery. NOW THIS is something that I OBSERVED in ALL 3 occasions, that allowed me to now SHARE this observation with you. In ALL 3 occasions, the battery RAN DOWN within the first 20 minutes(none of them went longer than 20minutes(ie 4minutes, 12minutes, 15min, 20min)) and the battery alert came up 7minutes remaining your battery is low. Basically the none of the batteries lasted as they would usually run for at least 2 hours.

YES I also cleaned out the fan and blew out the motherboard of any dust. My friend has the laptop repair shop. Even keeping the OLD battery, the same issue would arise, the Hard Drive would overheat, while I had the AC connector plugged in, AND if I took out the AC connector, the battery did not last very long(in my case under 20minutes).

Therefore, the issue was the battery that could not hold it's charge anymore. I had been keeping the battery plugged into the AC for about 3 years ongoing, & yes I also occasionally ran it on it's own without the AC while sitting on the bus or in the airport. BUT I MOSTLY kept it connected on the AC, like ALOT of people, FEELING the ASSUMED comfort that I was always 100% full power when something went wrong(blackout poweroutage in asia Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia). In the past I INITIALLY did what everyone else seem's to always bring up, clean the fan area, blow off the dust, check power settings, blame the hard drive. After REPLACING the battery, obviously because in all 3 occasions it could not CONTINUE past 20 minutes without the warning LOW BATTERY POWER. In my situation, which SOUNDS like what everyone is talking about, the battery was the issue.

Is the hard drive LESS HOT when only on the BATTERY(not connected to the AC adaptor), YES in my case it was LESS HOT, whether it was on the NEW BATTERY, or even on the FAULTY BATTERY(that did not last longer than 20 minutes with the warning LOW BATTERY POWER).

But in ALL occasions, when the FAULTY BATTERY(assumed to be working well with FULL POWER STORED) was connected to the AC connector, the Hard Drive and generally underneath the LAPTOP area was OBVIOUSLY very HOT, then often would cause an automatic shutdown after some time(within 3 hours sometimes or after many hours under 48 hours). It didn't matter whether I had the AIRCON in the hotel room or a fan blowing directly on the laptop. The Faulty battery always appeared to have the issue with the UNDERNEATH feeling GENERALLY UNCOMFORTABLY HOT(hard drive area, cpu, memory chips).

Replace the battery after seeing it not last very long like I did, then YES for the next 2-3years we MAY NOT have the same issues again(Max 4years). BUT I now know the symptoms of this after 4 occasions. I don't waste time, after watching the battery not last long on it's own. I just get a new battery.

Will there be times that your AC ADAPTOR is at fault? YES, but in that case, your battery won't be charged fully, and you will see that it doesn't appear to be CHARGING the battery or show connected to the AC power. Replace that too in that case. Only cost $6-$8 in Asia, and lasted LONGER than the batteries. THose occasions I didn't have overheating. I just didn't see the battery being charged.

Hope this HELPS EVERYONE.