why is my hard drive going?I ha

[Tommy!]

I have a 12" powerbook with 640 megs of ram. About the only 2 apps i use are AIM and safari/internet explorer. Why do these two programs always seem to overheat it and trigger the fan? they're not intensive programs, but they seem to be using the hard drive a lot. What can I do? It's really cutting down on my battery life. Thanks guys


Tommy

 

[Fender2112]

If you use a highspeed connection, try setting you browser cache to zero MB. This will cut down on the disk activity caused by all those cache files. These files can actually load quicker from the internet than from your hard drive.

I've also heard that the overheating of the hard drive is one of the major criticisms of the laptops. Point is, it has nothing to do with the apps you use. Its a design flaw.

 

[rainman::|:|]

The vast majority of heat created by HDs is due to the spinning, not accessing it-- so any time you've spun up, it's generating heat. Many things will need to access the HD over a period of time, but it sounds like something is not letting it spin down... definitely check safari's cache-- unfortunately you can't use RAM disks with X, in 9 it was convenient to put your cache on that...

also check your Energy Saver settings, to make sure the HD *is* set to spin down...

pnw