A morning coffee, a Heart attack, a though.....

So we see plenty of questions and worries, and flag bearing on Tom's Forum, this is none of that; This is a simple tale of what Has become, of my old system that died, suddenly needing surgery.

My main computer is a gaming station, but isn't my main goal in life, I am an On-Call service technician, and everything is done over the internet these days; emails, open and close tickets, resolutions, expense reports etc. nausea infinite; so it is mid range:
An Asus Z87 gryphon with 4790K, 32GIGS of Ram and GTX 970 SSC, Accessories include; Enermax 120S AIO, Ostrog Case, and 4 Enermax Fans. Nothing fancy, but Overclocked for years at 4.7Ghz ran smoothly until one day...

The days of confusion
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One evening, I turn off the computer as usual right before bed, and turning it on the following morning was greeted with a Asus logo, and a power down, cycling over and over. Fear grips me, it is 5 o'clock in the morning, and I am not caffeinated enough for the drama that just landed on my lap.

A Few more coffes later, I have pulled out the broken motherboard out from the case, slap another motherboard I have (Asus B85M-G) on hand, previously had tested it with a G3220 and upgraded the BIOS to the latest version I slap the 4790K on it and rebuild the computer.
Six in the morning, and the Sun comes around and a little cofee running thru my viens; I power it up, and get greeted with a blank screen, nothing else... *sighs x 100 time later*.
I slapped the G3220 back on the board and set my day to work, and my mind to figure out my next step.

I have the 4790K and the GTX 970 put aside, a quick look at prices on z87 and 97 motherboard set my mind refusing the cost and not wanting to spend $200 on a Z97 board. Because the budget isn't there for that, I would rather upgrade to the next generation system at that price, but undaunted, I scour the web, high and low, even nearby craigslist for a possible incredible deal to save my system, amd me from being force to continue with this painfully slow Dual core system for six months.

The luck of the Irish
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My wife reminds me that I still have that Amex gift card from lax christmas in my wallet. *BLINK* I search the wallet, produce the card, and after a quick phone call I check the balance on it. Whoot $30 balance.

Yes I am aware that $30 is nothing to get excited, except when your are looking for a motherboard no one wants, and in this case a Dell Optiplex 7020 SFF Motherboard, and selling with shipping included for a mear twenty Dollars; refurbished, new stock and comes with a warranty for 90 days, a DEAL !
Of course, I order it quickly and knowing it is a Dell, I stare at the motherboard image and my brain goes into overdrive, how to make this work..... will this possibly work?

Staring at the picture my eyes travel the headers and connectors, and quickly identify possible issues in the making; First thing to address was the 8 PIN connector for this 12V motherboard (old style boards),luck has it another eBay dealer is selling a 24 Pins to 8 Pin Dell optiplex 7020 PSA connector for $6.99. Caching the last monies on the Amex I order it.

Of course this enthusiasm is only fuel by the prayers at night asking a deity of sorts in this world of hardware to let it be my waiting 4790K is not blown.

The Wait
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It is Incredible how time....
Slows down....
Especially when your using a slow computer....

Seemingly takes days for someone to slap a box in a shipping box and mail it out....
time to catch up on my TV shows. 4-5 days later the motherboard arrives.

My wife with a smile, hands it to me, expecting me to be bouncing off the walls about it, I thanks her and slip it on the table. Eyes retuning to my paused show.
"What's wrong?", she is not used to not seeing me excited about hardware, especially projects. "Waiting for the power adaptor, until then. TV binging for me it is. "

Three days later, the adapter arrives, on a Saturday *cough* I feel a cold coming on, I call in sick and take Monday off; my weekend are too busy with keeping up with the outside grounds, inside the house, kid, food and life in general I wanted quiet time to myself to do this right.

Monday... never came fast enough....

Coffee for the morning Sun.
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The Sound of dripping in the background, the armoa of freshly brewed coffee, The mouth smacking of the cats eating their breakfast, the dim counter light over the motherboard on a box, on the kitchen counter, everything at hand, the slow pace of thinking it through before rolling with it, another sip of coffee, staring on the arrangement of parts, each step, though out, changed, processed, and tested 3 times in my head before the second cup of coffee.
By the 3rd, the CPU is installed, the AIO is mounted, the power supply wired to the adaptor and plugged into the board, and the memory stick clicking in place....

The problem with Dell in a nutshell; Dell doesnt follow industry standard, and it is especially true of 8 year old LGA 1150 motherboard, it was done either to keep children using pre build boxes, or deter "customizers of cheap hardware" away or because they just smoked bad weed al the time. But Problems, just need solutions.

How will I turn the power on and off the motherboard, how will I get my standard 3/4 pin AIO pump and fans to run on a 5 pin header on the board? will I be able to connect my USB3 and leds front panel up ?

I boot my laptop on the counter and search for a service manual or a user manual from Dell for the 7020 SFF system and score a motherboard diagram with pretty header and connector explanation diagram, Score!

Deciding to deal with the easiest first I go to my shed and pull out a 4 Pin Molex to 4 pin fan header, grab the 3 pin to 3 pin 3 way splitter and plugs the Molex into the power supply, and the 2 fans of the radiator and the AIO pump into the splitter. Yes it will run full tilt, but this is only but a test before the build.

Kiss my wife off to work, then after a shower and a fresh pot of coffee, I pause and smile to myself. "Funny, I miss the nights filled with Jolt Cola for some reason."

I scour the web for thirty minutes, discover ob eBay a used power cable for a 7020, I bookmark it, but at $14 not quite ready to through the towel in yet; I dig deeper in the dell forums, and customizing forums, slowly going back in to time; 2016, 15, 14, then just before turning over to the next decade.
BINGO! I find a user that made a power plug diagram explaining pin 1 and 4 are the ones needed to cross to get motherboard to boot. I grab my case, pull out the power wire connector, and push it into the 5 pin connector, crossing 1 and 4, and press the button... Beeeeeep... the fans start, the red glow of the LED's flash into the room, as the Dell logo appears.... I crack a smile about to celebrate.... Noooo! Beeeepp! Dell logo goes away.... system reboots.... I die a little inside.....
Five seconds of pure silence later, The system re starts, Beeping again, the fans restart as it reboots, its alive ! Its Alive ! I quickly beg the hardware deities... I plea, the logo appears...
I sip coffee nervously, not saying a word afraid I may scare it into turning itself off again, a twirling circle appears.... beep!.... I die as the logo blanks out... again.

A sigh of relief is hard to explain unless you experience it, this was that moment, the screen filled with warnings, no CPU Fan, no motherboard fan, no this, no that, nothing crucial to my endeavour this morning as I grin,staring at the "Press F1 to continue or F2 to go to Bios"

Knowing no hard drive is connected, I press my pointless finger on the key... No media found aborting, F1 to try again. I grin refill my cup... and find a drive... and my windows USB.

Rebooting this time into Bios, I do a quick check cpu rasm values all good, temps are stable, all looks well enough to push this further, 5 mins later F1 brings beautiful windows screen "Enter to install", yes it is a good morning.

Later the hardware is migreated to the case with SSD and HDD, and then test if it will take the GTX 1060... , and it fits, and the PCIE is x16 and should accept itm and the Bios is UFI enabled. should work; in the end only change I had to do; having to use 90' angle connectors on the SATA header to permit the long card to sit over hanged them... The drivers install the video card, and it hums away. My mind thinks, rum and coke to celebrate, but fingers remain focused on the task.

Yes of course, I benchmarked it at that point, who would not, yes it a bit slower than the original setup, nothing unexpected, it is only a Q87 chip set board after all...

Original CPU score on my Asus board was (pass Mark v9) 13087, a good rival to most 7700K.
Now the Dell board CPU scored a 11287, nothing to spit on for a $30 solution.

Still need to find a dell 5 pin fan header to 3 or 4 pin standard industry, but otherwise it hums along just fine, PUBG never looks so pretty graphically after spending 2 weeks play on a dual core at ultra-minimal everything.

I hope you enjoyed the take, and I'll post pictures later...

Edited for typos and Readability.
 
so here are the promised photos

1. the 24 ATX connector to DELL 8 Pin Motherboard
DiUHEAy.png


2. 5 pin connector to 4 pin fans for cpu and used a splitter to power 2 fans on radiator
3GP2f5j.png

mAaM90Y.jpg


3. 90 angled SATA connectors tro let the GPU rest over them when installed in the PCIE connector
15hXEMT.png


4. push in the power connector to the power connector of the dell.
sB0jcjG.png


5. use a Molex to 2 4pin fans to push in air into the fan from the front
5ie26k0.jpg


Final look at the install.
vpideTP.jpg