Bogus Maxtor HDD Temperature Reports

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dennise
  • Start date Start date
D

Dennise

After my Maxtor 40GB crashed (in warranty), to their credit, Maxtor
soon replaced it with a 60GB refurbished unit. The replacement was
based on a PowerMax diagnostic code obtained after running Maxtor's
PowerMax on the failed 40GB HDD.

Now I had been using both DTemp and HDDHealth to monitor HDD temp on
the 40GB drive that failed. The temps were always reliably reported,
usually between 23 deg C and say 33 deg C.

After installing the replacement 60GB refurbished drive, I no longer
see believable HDD temps. Instead, DTemp, HDDHealth and SpeedFan all
report totally bogus temps. At(cold) turn on, the reported temp begins
at about 50 deg C then rapidly climbs to about 170 deg C! This of
course is pure nonsense. The drive is fan cooled and is only warm to
the touch. It would melt-down at 170 deg C! But I keep getting
impending doom warnings about these rediculously high HDD temps.
Otherwise the replacement refurb drive seems stable and operates
nornally.

After contacting Maxtor on this, the tech attempted to 'blow smoke' at
me claiming my "HDD temperature monitor/BIOS software is corrupted"
and also that "Maxtor doesn't support 3rd party temperature monitor
programs". I tried to explain that three different temp monitors all
report the same bogus temps and that the original 40GB drive reported
temps just fine with the temp monitors. No go ...... Maxtor sticks by
their "corrupt software" excuse claiming the 40Gb crash corrupted the
software (even though I re-downloaded and reinstalled the SpeedFan
monitor after the 60GB replacement HD was installed). I don't buy
this!

Anyone else have similar experience with Maxtor's arrogance and lame
excuses? Is it at all possible that some common software somewhere
actually did get "corrupted" and that SpeedFan is using that SW? I
really would like to keep an eye on my HDD temp, and the temp
monitoring is supposed to be part of the S.M.A.R.T interface on this
drive.

Dennis
 
Previously Dennise said:
After my Maxtor 40GB crashed (in warranty), to their credit, Maxtor
soon replaced it with a 60GB refurbished unit. The replacement was
based on a PowerMax diagnostic code obtained after running Maxtor's
PowerMax on the failed 40GB HDD.
Click to expand...
Now I had been using both DTemp and HDDHealth to monitor HDD temp on
the 40GB drive that failed. The temps were always reliably reported,
usually between 23 deg C and say 33 deg C.
Click to expand...
After installing the replacement 60GB refurbished drive, I no longer
see believable HDD temps. Instead, DTemp, HDDHealth and SpeedFan all
report totally bogus temps. At(cold) turn on, the reported temp begins
at about 50 deg C then rapidly climbs to about 170 deg C! This of
course is pure nonsense. The drive is fan cooled and is only warm to
the touch. It would melt-down at 170 deg C! But I keep getting
impending doom warnings about these rediculously high HDD temps.
Otherwise the replacement refurb drive seems stable and operates
nornally.
Click to expand...
After contacting Maxtor on this, the tech attempted to 'blow smoke' at
me claiming my "HDD temperature monitor/BIOS software is corrupted"
and also that "Maxtor doesn't support 3rd party temperature monitor
programs". I tried to explain that three different temp monitors all
report the same bogus temps and that the original 40GB drive reported
temps just fine with the temp monitors. No go ...... Maxtor sticks by
their "corrupt software" excuse claiming the 40Gb crash corrupted the
software (even though I re-downloaded and reinstalled the SpeedFan
monitor after the 60GB replacement HD was installed). I don't buy
this!
Click to expand...
Anyone else have similar experience with Maxtor's arrogance and lame
excuses? Is it at all possible that some common software somewhere
actually did get "corrupted" and that SpeedFan is using that SW? I
really would like to keep an eye on my HDD temp, and the temp
monitoring is supposed to be part of the S.M.A.R.T interface on this
drive.
Click to expand...

Actually reading temperature via SMART is not that difficult.
As long as you can reqd registers, you can read the temperature.
So the "corrupt software" argument is completely bogus.
However, there does not seem to be a reliable standard on
which SMART register the temperature is actually reported in.

Linux "hddtemp" uses a table listing many drives and
families of drives to get around this problem. I do not know what
your software does.

Here is the Maxtor section from the current hddtemp.db.


########################################
############# Maxtor drives
########################################
#"Maxtor 2B0[012][04568]H1" ??? C "Maxtor Fireball 541DX"
"Maxtor 2F020J0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F020J0"
"Maxtor 2F030J0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F030J0"
"Maxtor 2F040L0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F040L0"
# which one must I trust ?
#"Maxtor 4D040H2" 9 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
#"Maxtor 4D040H2" 0 C "Maxtor 4D040H2"
#"Maxtor 4D080H4" 12 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
#"Maxtor 4D080H4" 9 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
"MAXTOR 4K0[468]0H[234]" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X serie"
"Maxtor 4[RA](16|12|08|06)0[LJ]0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax 16"
"Maxtor 5(1024|1369|2049|2732|3073|4098)U(2|3|4|6|8)" 0 C
"Maxtor 5A250J0" 194 C "Maxtor MaXline II 250GB 5400RPM
"Maxtor 7Y250[PM]0" 194 C "Maxtor MaXLine Plus II 250GB 72
"Maxtor 5T0[24]0H[24]" 0 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60"
"Maxtor 6E0[234]0L0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8"
"MAXTOR 6L0[2468]0[LJ][1234]" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X fa
"Maxtor 6Y(04|06|08|12|16|20)0[LPM]0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9"
"Maxtor 94098U8" 11 C "Maxtor DiamondMax 40 94098U8"
"Maxtor 5A300J0" 194 C "Maxtor 5A300J0"


The first column is a regular expression for the model number. Lines
starting with a # are inactive, since there is some unresolved issue.
The number before the "C" is the register number. A '0' means no
temperature monitoring support. "C" means the drive
reports celsius. Do you find your old and new drive model numbers in
there? Do they use the same register number?

You can find more Information and some software Links (also
Windows software) on the hddtemp homepage:

http://www.guzu.net/linux/hddtemp.php

Arno
 
Arno Wagner said:
Previously Dennise said:
After my Maxtor 40GB crashed (in warranty), to their credit, Maxtor
soon replaced it with a 60GB refurbished unit. The replacement was
based on a PowerMax diagnostic code obtained after running Maxtor's
PowerMax on the failed 40GB HDD.
Click to expand...
Now I had been using both DTemp and HDDHealth to monitor HDD temp on
the 40GB drive that failed. The temps were always reliably reported,
usually between 23 deg C and say 33 deg C.
Click to expand...
After installing the replacement 60GB refurbished drive, I no longer
see believable HDD temps. Instead, DTemp, HDDHealth and SpeedFan all
report totally bogus temps. At(cold) turn on, the reported temp begins
at about 50 deg C then rapidly climbs to about 170 deg C! This of
course is pure nonsense. The drive is fan cooled and is only warm to
the touch. It would melt-down at 170 deg C! But I keep getting
impending doom warnings about these rediculously high HDD temps.
Otherwise the replacement refurb drive seems stable and operates
nornally.
Click to expand...
After contacting Maxtor on this, the tech attempted to 'blow smoke' at
me claiming my "HDD temperature monitor/BIOS software is corrupted"
and also that "Maxtor doesn't support 3rd party temperature monitor
programs". I tried to explain that three different temp monitors all
report the same bogus temps and that the original 40GB drive reported
temps just fine with the temp monitors. No go ...... Maxtor sticks by
their "corrupt software" excuse claiming the 40Gb crash corrupted the
software (even though I re-downloaded and reinstalled the SpeedFan
monitor after the 60GB replacement HD was installed). I don't buy
this!
Click to expand...
Anyone else have similar experience with Maxtor's arrogance and lame
excuses? Is it at all possible that some common software somewhere
actually did get "corrupted" and that SpeedFan is using that SW? I
really would like to keep an eye on my HDD temp, and the temp
monitoring is supposed to be part of the S.M.A.R.T interface on this
drive.
Click to expand...

Actually reading temperature via SMART is not that difficult.
As long as you can reqd registers, you can read the temperature.
So the "corrupt software" argument is completely bogus.
However, there does not seem to be a reliable standard on
which SMART register the temperature is actually reported in.

Linux "hddtemp" uses a table listing many drives and
families of drives to get around this problem. I do not know what
your software does.

Here is the Maxtor section from the current hddtemp.db.


########################################
############# Maxtor drives
########################################
#"Maxtor 2B0[012][04568]H1" ??? C "Maxtor Fireball 541DX"
"Maxtor 2F020J0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F020J0"
"Maxtor 2F030J0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F030J0"
"Maxtor 2F040L0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F040L0"
# which one must I trust ?
#"Maxtor 4D040H2" 9 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
#"Maxtor 4D040H2" 0 C "Maxtor 4D040H2"
#"Maxtor 4D080H4" 12 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
#"Maxtor 4D080H4" 9 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
"MAXTOR 4K0[468]0H[234]" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X serie"
"Maxtor 4[RA](16|12|08|06)0[LJ]0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax 16"
"Maxtor 5(1024|1369|2049|2732|3073|4098)U(2|3|4|6|8)" 0 C
"Maxtor 5A250J0" 194 C "Maxtor MaXline II 250GB 5400RPM
"Maxtor 7Y250[PM]0" 194 C "Maxtor MaXLine Plus II 250GB 72
"Maxtor 5T0[24]0H[24]" 0 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60"
"Maxtor 6E0[234]0L0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8"
"MAXTOR 6L0[2468]0[LJ][1234]" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X fa
"Maxtor 6Y(04|06|08|12|16|20)0[LPM]0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9"
"Maxtor 94098U8" 11 C "Maxtor DiamondMax 40 94098U8"
"Maxtor 5A300J0" 194 C "Maxtor 5A300J0"


The first column is a regular expression for the model number. Lines
starting with a # are inactive, since there is some unresolved issue.
The number before the "C" is the register number. A '0' means no
temperature monitoring support. "C" means the drive
reports celsius. Do you find your old and new drive model numbers in
there? Do they use the same register number?

You can find more Information and some software Links (also
Windows software) on the hddtemp homepage:

http://www.guzu.net/linux/hddtemp.php

Arno
Click to expand...

Thanks for your post Arno.

You may have the answer to what I am seing. Register (temperature
register) differences between my original (failed 4D040H2) HDD; and
the Maxtor refurbished (4K060H3) HDD, could explain why the HDD temps
were OK with 4D040H2, but NOT on 4K060H3. The 4D040H2 drive appears on
your list, but the 4K060H3 does not appear anywhere on your list.

Any idea where I can find a more complete register assignment list for
Maxtor HDDs? I tried your link, but no luck.

BTW, I use Windows XP Home.

Dennis
 
Previously Dennise said:
Arno Wagner said:
########################################
############# Maxtor drives
########################################
#"Maxtor 2B0[012][04568]H1" ??? C "Maxtor Fireball 541DX"
"Maxtor 2F020J0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F020J0"
"Maxtor 2F030J0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F030J0"
"Maxtor 2F040L0" 194 C "Maxtor 2F040L0"
# which one must I trust ?
#"Maxtor 4D040H2" 9 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
#"Maxtor 4D040H2" 0 C "Maxtor 4D040H2"
#"Maxtor 4D080H4" 12 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
#"Maxtor 4D080H4" 9 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X-4D"
"MAXTOR 4K0[468]0H[234]" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X serie"
"Maxtor 4[RA](16|12|08|06)0[LJ]0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax 16"
"Maxtor 5(1024|1369|2049|2732|3073|4098)U(2|3|4|6|8)" 0 C
"Maxtor 5A250J0" 194 C "Maxtor MaXline II 250GB 5400RPM
"Maxtor 7Y250[PM]0" 194 C "Maxtor MaXLine Plus II 250GB 72
"Maxtor 5T0[24]0H[24]" 0 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60"
"Maxtor 6E0[234]0L0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8"
"MAXTOR 6L0[2468]0[LJ][1234]" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X fa
"Maxtor 6Y(04|06|08|12|16|20)0[LPM]0" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9"
"Maxtor 94098U8" 11 C "Maxtor DiamondMax 40 94098U8"
"Maxtor 5A300J0" 194 C "Maxtor 5A300J0"
Click to expand...
[...]
Thanks for your post Arno.
Click to expand...
You may have the answer to what I am seing. Register (temperature
register) differences between my original (failed 4D040H2) HDD; and
the Maxtor refurbished (4K060H3) HDD, could explain why the HDD temps
were OK with 4D040H2, but NOT on 4K060H3. The 4D040H2 drive appears on
your list, but the 4K060H3 does not appear anywhere on your list.
Click to expand...

Actually both are there:
the 4D040H2 with either register 9 or incapable to report temperature.
This strongly indicates some sort of problem with the drive.

The 4K060H3 is in this entry:

"MAXTOR 4K0[468]0H[234]" 194 C "Maxtor DiamondMax D540X serie"
4k0 6 0H 3
Any idea where I can find a more complete register assignment list for
Maxtor HDDs? I tried your link, but no luck.
Click to expand...

The excerpt above is from the current hddtemp.db. I find is surprising
that the 4K060H3 does not diplay correctly: Register 194 is pretty
much standard for Maxtors. Hmmm.
BTW, I use Windows XP Home.
Click to expand...

On a short search I did not find a SMART tool that lists registers.
If you have the bandwidth and a CD-burner, you could download
a Knoppix CD-only linux. After boot go to the text console (alt-F1, e.g,
in the GUI you are not root) and type

smartctl -a /dev/hda | less

You should get (among other things) a scrollable (the 'less') list
of all smart registers. Looks e.g. like this:

root ~>smartctl -a /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.32 Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: Maxtor 6Y200P0
Serial Number: Y61HR9EE
Firmware Version: YAR41BW0
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0
Local Time is: Sat Oct 16 05:22:06 2004 CEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x80) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 363) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 82) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 177 177 063 Pre-fail Always - 27103
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 437
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 253 253 063 Pre-fail Always - 0
6 Read_Channel_Margin 0x0001 253 253 100 Pre-fail Offline - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0027 253 244 187 Pre-fail Always - 47326
9 Power_On_Minutes 0x0032 245 245 000 Old_age Always - 684h+31m
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x002b 253 244 157 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x002b 253 252 223 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 252 252 000 Old_age Always - 448
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 23
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 2037
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0008 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0008 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0008 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0008 199 199 000 Old_age Offline - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 245 000 Old_age Always - 60
202 TA_Increase_Count 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
203 Run_Out_Cancel 0x000b 253 252 180 Pre-fail Always - 0
204 Shock_Count_Write_Opern 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
205 Shock_Rate_Write_Opern 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
207 Spin_High_Current 0x002a 253 244 000 Old_age Always - 0
208 Spin_Buzz 0x002a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
209 Offline_Seek_Performnce 0x0024 199 198 000 Old_age Offline - 0
99 Unknown_Attribute 0x0004 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
100 Unknown_Attribute 0x0004 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
101 Unknown_Attribute 0x0004 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 2127 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

root ~>

The first column is the register number. You can see that my first disk
(hda) is at 23C (the RAW_VALUE). For second disk replace hda with hdb
in the command, etc.

If you find an XP SMART application that list individual registers,
that will do as well. However I found that windows software often
refuses to give detailes, raw information.

Arno
 
Previously Arno Wagner said:
Previously Dennise said:
Arno Wagner <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
Click to expand...
[...]
On a short search I did not find a SMART tool that lists registers.
If you have the bandwidth and a CD-burner, you could download
a Knoppix CD-only linux. After boot go to the text console (alt-F1, e.g,
in the GUI you are not root) and type
Click to expand...

That would be ctrl-alt-f2, sorry.

Arno
 
Arno Wagner said:
On a short search I did not find a SMART tool that lists registers.
If you have the bandwidth and a CD-burner, you could download
a Knoppix CD-only linux. After boot go to the text console (alt-F1, e.g,
in the GUI you are not root) and type

smartctl -a /dev/hda | less
Click to expand...
Oh clueless one, they could simply run smartctl under Windows.
 
Dennise said:
Oh clueless one, they could simply run smartctl under Windows.
Click to expand...

OK I'll bite. Under Windows, what is "smartctl" and where does one get this.[/QUOTE]

It is a command line SMART utility for Windows and Linux:
smartmontools.sourceforge.net

I use HDD Health for temp: www.panterasoft.com
 
I have no idea why, but out of the blue, the temp reports on my Maxtor
replacement (4K060H3) HDD started giving belivable and stable data.
SpeedFan, DTemp and HDDHealth all show credible temps now.

Maybe Windows XP detected an errant driver and switched to a better
one. Who knows?

Anyway, looks like I'm OK with my HDD temps now. Thanks Arno and
everyone for their helpful posts.

Dennis
 
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