Dell XPS 8100 Fan Replacement?

[Bardock518]

Hi guys,

I bought an XPS 8100 with an i7 processor back in 2010 and was looking to upgrade parts. I bumped up the PSU from the stock 350W to a Corsair HX 750W and am receiving the Sapphire R9 290X GPU in the mail by Monday.

Primarily, I wanted to replace the PSU because the 8100's fans (I am not sure which one) seem to be blowing extremely loud when playing games or videos etc. This issue has been going on for years and I am finally fed up with it.

I am not sure if it is the GPU installed as of right now (Radeon 5770) that is making the noise but if it is the Case Fan, or the Heatsink Fan, can I replace these items? And if so, which do I pick from?

Please keep in mind that the case fan and heatsink fan are the stock ones.

 

[DougOrama]

Four pin. I would rather it did the job without running full blast all the time if it's anything like the current fan. It sounds like a tornado when it's really ramping up.

Small town here, so not any good local options. I usually order stuff from Amazon or Newegg.

Do you think a better case fan would make any difference, or are they pretty much the same?

 

[Kisianik]

Case fan, not really, CPU fan for sure, and it is not that loud, CityNet, I mean. I had three 92mm fans at full blast, plus 2 80mm fans at full blast in Inspiron case, with case on the floor, the sound was not high pitch, but low hmmm like. 1 fan not suppose to make things worse.
Anyway, you can always buy that fan later, this is the beauty of TX3 - you can attach any 92 mm fan to it, just make sure that new fan has only 3 pin connector, or dual setup like CityNet so you can connect Molex (larger connector) directly to PSU.
And follow Arctic Silver recommendations, and use Arctic Silver 5 paste, CM paste is junk.

If you want to use different paste, this is something interesting to follow.

I found this list of tested thermal compounds, it is from 2007, but it still provides the idea of different brands.

I think temperatures provided in Celsius.
|results|


|*** thermal interface|
Tital Nano Blue 59
Panasonic 58.5
KPT-8 (reference) 56.6

|decent thermal interface|
Data Cooler 57
Titan TTG S-104 , S-103 56.7
Pasta Siliconowa 56.6
Zalman CSL 850 56.5
Noctua 56.5
Stars Silver 56.5
Stars 700/Aero 700 56
GeIL GL-TCP1b 55.6
Thermopox 55.6
КПТ-8(BeO) 55.5
Sil more 55.5
Shin-Etsu(white) 55.5
W.P. 55.5
STARS (white, soft pack) 55.5
AKT-842 55
Fanner 420 55
Koolance 55

|good thermal interface|
Arctic Alumina 55.5
Arctic Silver-3 54.6
AOS 54.5
DC-340 54.5
Asetek 54.5
Arctic Silver-5 53.5
Arctic Ceramique 53.5

|great thermal interface|
Apus TMG 301 52.5
Gigabyte 52.5
Titan Nano Grease TTG-G30010 52.5
GFC-M1 D90T8-010 52.5
Shin-Etsu MicroSi G-751 52

|outstanding thermal interface|
Arctic Cooling MX-1 51.5
Shin-Etsu MicroSi MPU-3.7 50.5
Coollaboratory Liquid Pro 50

P.S. Coollaboratory Liquid Pro can only be used with copper or silver though because it will damage aluminum.

Also, Arctic Silver 5 takes about 5 days to reach it full potential.

Anything else I can help you with?

 

[DougOrama]

Thanks for all the time and info. I'm good for now until the next phase. I'll let you know how it works out.

 

[DougOrama]

I went to Radio Shack earlier today and got some of that Arctic Ceramique and decided to try it on my old fan. I followed the instructions that you linked, "tinting" and using the one-line application. It already made a dramatic difference, about 20 degrees from where it was, and at least 10 cooler than it was running before I jacked with it. I'll get the new cooler in a few days and see how that works.

 

[frank the tank]

sometimes the simplest solution is the best way to go

if you still want to upgrade this is what i recommended

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608016

it uses a back plate but it will fit any recent socket (including 775) its also considerably shorter than the 212 since it uses 92mm fans

 

[DougOrama]

Finally installed my new fan, the Hyper TX3. I've been running a lot cooler with my old fan and the new heatsink, but the new fan knocked it down about another 12 degrees. With streaming video running it went from about 56c with the old fan to 44c with the new fan. When I started having problems I would sometimes get up near 100, so that's a huge difference.

Now I probably should upgrade to a cooler and better graphics card from the crappy GeForce GTS 240 that came with it, but I'm pretty cash strapped right now after car repairs and computer junk. It gets in the mid 80s when it's good and warmed up.

 

[DougOrama]

Finally opened up my graphics card and I think I may have figured out why it runs just a tad hot.

Cleaned it all out and it runs 30 c cooler. Duh...