A new SSD that runs hot
Why does my laptop's new SSD run hotter than the old one?
Written by The CommonFixes team · fact checked by CommonFixes review desk
Last updated
Short answer
Nearly every upgrade swaps an older SATA or a slower NVMe drive for a fast PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0 one, and those newer controllers simply produce more heat for the same work. That is normal by itself. What is not normal is the drive sitting near its limit while idle, and that usually comes down to a missing thermal pad, a missing heat spreader, or the drive never being allowed to drop into its low power state. The quickest thing to try first: find out what the temperature really is — Install CrystalDiskInfo on Windows and read the temperature on the drive panel, or run smartctl -a /dev/nvme0 on Linux. Idle in the 35 to 50 degree range is healthy. Brief spikes to 70 degrees during a large copy are also fine. A drive sitting above 70 degrees while you are doing nothing is the case worth acting on. Most people are done in about 25 minutes.
Full walkthrough below: 6 steps for Windows and Mac, rated medium.
Sounds like this
- •The drive reports 60 to 80 degrees in monitoring software
- •Big file copies start fast then crawl
- •The area near the drive is warm and the fan spins up
Why it happens
Nearly every upgrade swaps an older SATA or a slower NVMe drive for a fast PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0 one, and those newer controllers simply produce more heat for the same work. That is normal by itself. What is not normal is the drive sitting near its limit while idle, and that usually comes down to a missing thermal pad, a missing heat spreader, or the drive never being allowed to drop into its low power state.
Work through these in order
0% done- 1
Find out what the temperature really is
Install CrystalDiskInfo on Windows and read the temperature on the drive panel, or run smartctl -a /dev/nvme0 on Linux. Idle in the 35 to 50 degree range is healthy. Brief spikes to 70 degrees during a large copy are also fine. A drive sitting above 70 degrees while you are doing nothing is the case worth acting on.
- 2
Check the drive is actually touching the laptop chassis
Many laptops cool the drive through a thin thermal pad between the drive and the metal shield or the base plate. If the old drive had that pad stuck to it and it went in the bin with it, the new one is cooling through air only. Open the base, look for a bare pad or a shiny rectangle on the shield, and fit a fresh pad of the correct thickness, usually 0.5 mm or 1 mm.
- 3
Remove a thick aftermarket heatsink if you added one
Retail NVMe drives sometimes ship with a chunky heatsink meant for a desktop. In a laptop that heatsink can stop the base plate from closing flat against the drive, which makes cooling worse rather than better. Use the bare drive plus a thin pad instead, and keep any sticker on the drive because on several brands it is a copper heat spreader.
- 4
Turn the drive power settings back on
On Windows open Control Panel, Power Options, Change plan settings, Change advanced power settings, then Hard disk and PCI Express. Set Link State Power Management to Maximum power savings for battery use. Some upgrade guides tell people to disable this and the drive then never idles down, which alone adds ten degrees or more.
- 5
Update the drive firmware
Manufacturers ship real fixes for heat and idle power in firmware. Use Samsung Magician, Western Digital Dashboard, Crucial Storage Executive or the tool for your brand and apply any pending firmware update. Several PCIe 4.0 models had first release firmware that ran markedly hotter than the version available now.
- 6
Confirm the throttling before you worry
Copy a 30 GB folder onto the drive and watch the speed. A drop from very fast to steady after the first few gigabytes is the write cache filling up, which is normal on every consumer drive and is not overheating. A drop that arrives together with a temperature above 80 degrees is the drive protecting itself, and that is the one to solve.
If none of that worked
If the drive still sits above 75 degrees at idle with a fresh pad and current firmware, raise the back of the laptop by a centimetre so air can reach the vents underneath, and clear the fan of dust while you have it open. When that is still not enough, a DRAM free drive in a low airflow slot is the wrong fit for that chassis and swapping to a cooler running model is more sensible than fighting it.
Did this fix work for you?
A quick thumbs up helps other readers find the guides that actually work.
Share this fix
Related fixes worth reading
Chosen automatically from the 157 guides on CommonFixes, based on how closely they match this problem.
It slows down at only 60 or 70 degrees
Why is my laptop thermal throttling at low temperatures like 60c or 70c?
The charger buzzes, hisses or whines
Why does my laptop charger make a buzzing sound?
The fan makes a grinding noise
Why does my laptop make a grinding noise when the fan spins?
The laptop roars like a small machine
My laptop fan is very loud and sounds like a vibrating machine. Is that bad?
An Asus laptop fan roars with Armoury Crate installed
How do I fix Asus laptop fan running loudly with Armoury Crate installed?
Mouse stutters with other USB devices
Why does my wired mouse stutter when other USB devices are plugged in?
Still not it? Browse every fix or see more in noise, heat and battery.
Who wrote this and how we checked it
The CommonFixes team
Writer and researcher
We are a small group of people who spend our days repairing laptops and desktops for family, friends and small offices. Every guide here starts with a problem someone actually brought to us, and we only write down the steps that put the machine right.
- Everyday repairs
- Windows and Mac
- Plain language
CommonFixes review desk
Technical editor
Before a guide goes live, a second person walks through it on a real machine and checks each instruction against the maker's own support pages. Anything we cannot confirm is removed rather than guessed at.
- Fact checking
- Safety warnings
- Source links
Sources we checked these steps against
This guide was last updated on 13 August 2026. If a step no longer matches what you see on screen, tell us on the contact page and we will test it again.
A gentle reminder: back up anything you cannot afford to lose before major repairs. If a step ever feels risky, stop and ask a technician. There is no shame in that.