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

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[–] 1 point 4 hours ago* (2 children)

Jeebus that's one heckuva wall of text. I skimmed:

ca glue

When it comes to the broader "superglue" you mentioned, I've used several that create a bond by melting the surfaces it's applied to. I get it - you were trying to get across "metal good" and "superglue" just gets across easier. But if you knew the horror stories I've seen in the process of helping thousands of newbies troubleshoot hardware issues, you wouldn't be so flippant about your instructions.

Based on the ops own post, the ssd is idling at 67 or so c. We wanna keep it below 90 for [explanation redacted].

the heat is coming from inside the ssd

OP's ssd that should be idling in the 40C range is idling at 67C. Do you think addressing just the ssd temps with a heatsink will solve OP's issue or is there some core problem that needs to be addressed before we even start talking about ssd load temps? With 3 ssd failures so far and unaddressed heat issues in other components reported by OP, how long do you think OP's motherboard, PSU or other components are going to last?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago (1 child)

    Superglue is ca glue. Ca glue chemically bonds to itself and mechanically bonds to the surfaces it’s put between. I would like to know the kind of glue you are talking about. I never instructed the op to glue a nut to their ssd, however that would be a fine thing to do.

    If it’s not clear by now: yes, I believe the problems will be resolved with a heatsink. They asked about how to stop losing ssds in an environment with passive cooling and the answer is a heatsink. Even if I didn’t have a wealth of theoretical knowledge that can simply be regurgitated while on the toilet to people who will not read it, I also have experience dealing with flash memory in sealed, passively cooled and high vibration environments which indicates that conclusion.

    Here’s how a heatsink will resolve their problems: the heatsinks huge increase to their nand chips thermal mass will reduce the effect that periodic reads and writes have on its die temperature and the heatsinks much greater surface area and better transfer properties will dump that heat into the ambient air much faster than the surface of their nand chips package will.

    Their pc has vents and is designed to rely on passive cooling. Perhaps it will last a long time, perhaps not. Pulling the ol “would that end racism? Would that end sexism?” Is akin in this instance to rushing into the operating theater to disrupt an in progress remediation of gunshot trauma to inform the staff that the persons heart disease is a big deal.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    They asked about how to stop losing ssds in an environment with passive cooling and the answer is a heatsink.

    Their pc has vents and is designed to rely on passive cooling. Perhaps it will last a long time, perhaps not.

    And how's that going considering 3 ssd failures and current idle temp of 67C versus the expected 40's? You're clearly not so dumb that you don't know that a heatspreader will have its limits when you're up against dead air so this is plainly what's called being wilfully obtuse. And OP is the one who will suffer for it.

    rushing into the operating theater to disrupt an in progress remediation of gunshot trauma to inform the staff that the persons heart disease is a big deal

    Funny, I'd liken your advice to putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound. But keep telling yourself you're a trauma surgeon and not the janitor in a lab coat that OP was unfortunate enough to stumble into. Learn to admit when you're wrong.

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