NVMe Temp Spikes during renders

mambanegra

So, I had some nasty issues a few months back caused by a failing hard drive, and I downloaded a tool to help alert me to SMART issues. This tool also monitors temperature of all of the disks in my machine (the one that failed ran constantly hot before I removed it). The NVMe disk that my OS lives on periodically jumps over 60 degrees during renders. If those take a long time, it will remain warm until the render completes and then after a little while, drops back down. 

Has anyone paid attention to this? Do you know if having the temp exceed 60C for an hour off and on over the course of a few days is enough of a concern to look into doing something about? 

kenshaw011267

60C is well inside the operating range of m.2 drives.

mambanegra

So, a quick search suggests 0-70C to be the typical range, so I am probably OK, then. Thanks! I had read that anything over 60 was bad, but I think they were talking about SATA form factor. 

I think renders of 10 to 15 minutes result in temperatures in the mid 60s, but I haven't done anything that required anything really long since I installed that program. 

namffuak

This sounds like you have an air flow issue in your case - my drives seldom get above 37 degrees, but I've got three fans in the front of the case pulling air in past the drives and another three fans on the top and back pulling air out of the case. A quick google indicates that 60 degrees is pushing the envelope for mechanical drives.

mambanegra

Well, this is an SSD drive that's physically attached to the motherboard (and sits right below the graphics card), so I suspect that, in addition to the workload studio puts on it, it's probably catching some of the heat from the card as well. There are two mechanical drives in this machine, but they are under 40 degrees ATM and typical don't change much. The one that went bad was actually sandwiched between two other disks, so there wasn't much airflow between them. It's not like that any more :)

FWIW, after namffuak's comment, I realized that it was time to clean the air filter and discovered it was pretty bad. I probably need to check it every 2 weeks instead of monthly:( After cleaning it, the NVMe hasn't gone over 57 degrees even after over 10 minutes of rendering. 

kenshaw011267

From Samsung's datasheet for the 970 pro

The operating temp is 0C to 70C.

The Flash chips operate better at higher temps but the controller chip operates better at slightly cooler temps. If you're really obsessed with maximum performance, why?, then you need to get the performance curves on both the flash chips on your specific drive and the controller on that specific drive and work out the peak performance of the two chips at the same temp. IMO, too much hassle for the effort. Just stay in the oeprating nge.

mambanegra

I'm not personally concerned about maximum performance. I just didn't want to be frying my main (and most expensive) hard drive and it seems like that isn't the case.