I got a pc that suffers from severe heating problems because of its poorly designed passive cooling case. I tried several strategies to put temperature under control, did a lot of tests with thermald, but ended up hacking a fan into the case. However, I still have problems with ssd temperatures.

Right now, as I write this, the nvme ssd is at 67ºC and easily goes beyond 80 or 90 during data transfers. I already lost 2 ssds before realizing this was the problem, because I was controlling just the cpu temperature.

There’s no physical way to force airflow where the ssd is, so I was wondering if there’s some way to throttle data transfer of something to prevent the ssd temperatures from reaching a threshold. All I could find was a vibecoded github repository. I don’t care if data transfer gets ridiculously slow, as long as the ssd remain safe, and I can’t consider getting any new hardware right now.

I’m currently running fedora 44 on that machine

Edit: I thought there was an easier software mitigation to that, but apparently, solutions will tend to the hardware side, so here are the hardware details:

  • It’s an unbranded chinese cheap mini pc with a heat dissipation case that doesn’t dissipate well
  • The ssd is mounted on the back of the motherboard. The model is a sandisk M.2 1TB 2280
    Here’s a photo of the case, for the reference (don’t judge me lol):

image

  • alottafagina@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 hours ago

    What does the present +22C leap from expected idle ssd temps signify? How much energy does this take, where is it coming from and how much do you expect it to drop with even a puny 60mm fan circulating air in the area? What does not addressing this signify for overall system lifespan?

    It doesn’t take much experience to get these answers right (which you have loads of!!!) but it does take skill to be this wilfully dense. Which puts you among that one group of people you always find in any newbie-oriented hardware forum, people who offer bad but seemingly well-meaning advice, but are well-meeaning only up to the point where they have to admit they are wrong at which point they do what you’re doing and double down for ego’s sake. This deserves ire.

    FYI when a real trauma surgeon hears “heart problem”, they’re thinking beta blockers, blood thinners and vasodilators - you know, the stuff most cardiac patients take that would cause you to bleed out on the operating table without special precautions. An ironic demonstration of your inability to scratch beyond the surface of any given topic. I bet you don’t even clean the toilets properly.

    • TrollAccount69@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 hour ago

      It signifies that the ssd is in a passively cooled case without a heatsink.

      I’d say adding a heatsink to the ssd will drop the idle temperatures down at least ten degrees (more like fifteen or twenty, but it’s important to not overestimate no matter how optimistic someone might be!). During long transfers is where the real benefit comes in, it’s still possible to get the ssd in the 90c zone but it’s gonna take much, much longer because the package will take forever to heat the heatsink up and the heatsink will much more efficiently dump that heat into the air. That flatter curve is gonna be a huge help to the op because most people aren’t running constant data transfers as fast as their equipment can handle them 24/7, 365. It’s likely op is seeing ssds die when they transfer their 200gb futa SpongeBob memes folder and the temperature spikes up into the 90s for a few minutes, not while serving that folder to all their fellow bikini bottom enthusiasts at the 10gbps lan party. A flatter curve keeps the ssd at a safe temperature longer.

      It’s possible that the ops combination of pcie version and usbc revision (it’s a 7th or 8th gen intel iirc) can’t even do enough operations to get the heatsinked ssd up into the water messes up your packages seal zone when making transfers onto or off of it. Internal action will still heat it up as fast as possible though because the snappy ssd controller won’t be checking its watch and tapping its foot while some packet takes precious microseconds to come down the bus.

      The computer has been fine. It will probably continue to be fine once the op gets a heatsink on their ssd. They did not ask us to help them price out and build a new computer, but to keep their ssds from dying, and not to repeat myself too much but that’s what a heatsink will do.

      Now it’s also possible that their power supply is whats periodically killing their disks but the heat is a good first step.

      You really gotta ease up. Insults and rudeness couched in flowery language are no shield. If this is your first time on lemmy, people take that kind of stuff much more serious than on Reddit.

      There’s uh, also a pretty flagrant degree of classism in your replies that might not go over well on the left wing servers like ml. Just be aware.