topic Intel SSD 525 Overheating in Solid State Drives (NAND)

Intel SSD 525 Overheating

MRitt2 — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:19:01 GMT

Hello Community,

i got an Intel SSD 525 (240GB) mSATA drive for my notebook (Lenovo Y580) and installed Windows 8.

Suddenly my notebook turns of and does not detect the SSD on reboot. After some minutes i tried again and the SSD shows up, everything looks fine.

I installed IntelSSD Toolbox wich says, no problem, SSD status 100%. With CrystalDiskInfo, i could see the problem, the SSD has 65-70°C in idle (while the rest of the system is from 47°C (Intel HD Graphic) to 57°C (CPU Intel I7 / nVidia GTX 660M)

If i copy something from HDD to SSD, the SSD temperature goes up to 85°.

I dont think it's a problem with temp. of other components, because in 3DMark Test, GPU and CPU go up to 90°C while SSD stays at ~70° if 3DMark is loaded from HDD and 85° if 3DMark is loaded from SSD

Room temperature is 30°C

The old mSATA (32GB) never had any problem, but i never looked which temperature it has because there was no error.

Actually my solution is, to open the bottom of my notebook an put in in front of big ventilator, which keeps the SSD at 55°, but it's no solution to took my ventilator everywhere i go.

I hope my english is not too bad, i tried my best

Best regards

Mauel Ritter

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

UHans — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:50:44 GMT

There are a few similar reports of 525 overheating in the Intel NUC forum ( ), and the official fix (at least for the NUC) seems to be installing a certain thermal pad to provide additional cooling of the SSD.

If the mSATA slot with the 525 in it is located directly beneath a metal/aluminum chassis cover, a sandwiched thermal pad of the correct thickness could maybe also be a solution for you, meaning the metal cover acts as a heatsink.

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

MRitt2 — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:29:45 GMT

Maybe this could help, but on the downside where i could connect it to the bottom cover is a label and i don't know if it is neccessary for warranty or something else. Or should i put the cool pad over the label?

And i think the gap between ssd and bottom cover is to large (6-7mm) but i try it.

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

UHans — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 07:25:00 GMT

If you indeed have 6-7mm of clearance between the card and the cover, you could instead consider an actual heatsink. There are small, adhesive low-profile heatsinks available for graphic card memory chips that might fit. If the label is on the 525, it will probably be warranty-voiding to remove it. But I guess you could just put the heatsink on top of it.

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

MRitt2 — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 07:52:51 GMT

Ok, i ordered a thermal pad and a pack of heatsinks, to test a little bit, i will report when it arrives

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

MRitt2 — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 15:19:35 GMT

After one month of testing, i can report that i have no effect from the heatsinks, same problem as before.

Any other idea?

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

UHans — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 18:03:14 GMT

Assuming overheating is still the root cause, it seems you are pretty much out of options. Lowering the temperature further would require active cooling, like mounting something like this on the inside of the chassis lid:

I dare to say that Intel has more or less acknowledged that the 525 can run a bit too hot (see http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-034326.htm Next Unit of Computing Boards — High temperature causes SSD to stop working ) so your best bet might be to go for a formal support case or RMA request. Other models or brands of mSATA SSD might be a better choice for your particular setup.

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

Jose_H_Intel1 — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:30:24 GMT

We recommend consulting with your system manufacturer regarding any design considerations since some designs may not dissipate heat sufficiently when using this product as an aftermarket upgrade.

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

MRitt2 — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 07:43:08 GMT

Hello Joe,

i already talked to Lenovo and they told me, that there should be no heat problem. Other mSATA SSDs (e.g. Samsung) have no heat problems at all.

Best Regards

Manuel Ritter

Re: Intel SSD 525 Overheating

Jose_H_Intel1 — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 15:34:54 GMT

You may contact your local Intel® support team for further assistance.

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contactsupport http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/contactsupport