HDD Heating too much

[Shaad325]

My pc was working fine until last month.Now a days I noticed my 2.5 inch HGST 500GB HDD is getting hot. I thought my pc is working well this may be normal but now my pc is freezing and I reset it HDD shows in BIOS. after 5 to10 minutes it gets detected and pc starts normally .it happens after using pc continuously. psu is old that maybe a reason i am not sure please advice me...

pc configuration is blow
e4600 c2d processor
2gb ddr2 667mhz ram
MSI g31 motherboard (ms-7379)
HGST 2.5 INCH 500gb HDD
450 w PSU intex

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

Sometimes older PCs have a way of telling you that its time to upgrade to a new one and retire your old workhorse.
Perhaps now is that time.

 

[Solandri]

Yeah, that sounds like a failing hard drive. Make sure your data is backed up before it dies completely. If it's getting hotter than normal, probably a bearing is failing and causing more friction. That's actually a fairly easy fix for a HDD repair shop, but not worth it for something this old or small.

If you want to squeeze a little more use out of the computer, replace the HDD with a 2.5" SSD (recommend the Samsung EVO 850). It will provide a dramatic speedup over the HDD, and when you eventually retire this computer and get a new one you can re-use it in the new computer.

While a Core 2 Duo system is old, it's still fine for simple tasks like browsing and email and office tasks. If that's all you need, then I don't think a new system is warranted unless you're in the habit of leaving this computer on when not in use. Power consumption of newer computers is dramatically lower than Core 2 Duo systems. The other thing you need to be concerned about is which version of Windows you have. Microsoft just ended long-term support for Vista, so it is no longer getting security updates. Unless you're using Windows 7 or newer, it may be worth upgrading to a new computer just to get a new OS (or you can switch to Linux).