Did Dell Screw Up?

[asloane]

Ask Dell that. Your CPU ran fine for 2 1/2 years (and is still running) so ther's a reason for it. I don't believe anyone screwed up because as you wrote about the cooling setup,

Did anyone ask Dell?

 

[billdcat4]

I have the same plastic strip covering one of the air ducts - except for a tiny gap < 1mm (it's not totally snug).

I have the internal components of a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 3 with me but the housing box is in another country (airplane weight restrictions :-/ ).

So I don't have the complete PC h/w configuration in front of me.

I recently got a non-Dell box with a Silvershield 400W ATX PSU. That's 60W less than the Dell PSU.

I am wondering if I can safely rehouse the Gen 3 components inside the non-Dell box with this non-DELL PSU or will there be non-compatibility and power issues? Well I am sure that's for another thread.

I can post pictures of the green fan and plastic strip if anyone wants?

Please give us some pics of the green fan and plastic strip, thats what this thread was originally about.

I was thinking of wiring another fan to the right of the HSF... but I only have 1 free 4-pin molex for power

if the heatsink is warm(hot) it means its working Smile

It's been that hot for years and its still kicking. and now you have 2 fans that are working. i would not worry about it. I bet the fans are quiet. Dell tends to trade some heat to keep the sound down. lower air speed = hotter heatsink

I never could touch the stock heatsinks on the old athlon xp's and that was only @ 60c(max even 50c is hot to touch)

The fans are NOT quiet. They are very loud probably 45-50DbA. They push VERY little air. Compared to my PCI blower which is rated at 22CFM, I would say that they are half as powerful. Dell, you suck...

 

[goldragon_70]

I was thinking of wiring another fan to the right of the HSF... but I only have 1 free 4-pin molex for power

If you get the right kind of fan you can connect several to that same molex cable, or connect it between a 4-pin power and something you know doesn't need the max power that can be pulled through it.

 

[billdcat4]

I was thinking of wiring another fan to the right of the HSF... but I only have 1 free 4-pin molex for power

If you get the right kind of fan you can connect several to that same molex cable, or connect it between a 4-pin power and something you know doesn't need the max power that can be pulled through it.

links?

any of these ok?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=573&Description=&Type=&N=2010110573&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=3725%3A26580&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26534&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26535&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26528&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26538&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26530&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26531&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26555&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26556&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26552&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26553&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26554&PropertyCodeValue=3732%3A26564&PropertyCodeValue=3732%3A26565

 

[goldragon_70]

links?

any of these ok?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=573&Description=&Type=&N=2010110573&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=3725%3A26580&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26534&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26535&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26528&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26538&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26530&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26531&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26555&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26556&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26552&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26553&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26554&PropertyCodeValue=3732%3A26564&PropertyCodeValue=3732%3A26565

I'm not going through the whole list but I will list the first 6. (That's why I didn't post links, and unless the fan is very poorly built, most fans will work for you the same) If you look at the pictures you will see either that it has two 4 pin connectors one male and one female, or you will see a connector with a male on one side and a female on the other.

one
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Five
Six

 

[billdcat4]

links?

any of these ok?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=573&Description=&Type=&N=2010110573&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=3725%3A26580&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26534&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26535&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26528&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26538&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26530&PropertyCodeValue=3727%3A26531&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26555&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26556&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26552&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26553&PropertyCodeValue=3731%3A26554&PropertyCodeValue=3732%3A26564&PropertyCodeValue=3732%3A26565

I'm not going through the whole list but I will list the first 6. (That's why I didn't post links, and unless the fan is very poorly built, most fans will work for you the same) If you look at the pictures you will see either that it has two 4 pin connectors one male and one female, or you will see a connector with a male on one side and a female on the other.

one
two
Three
Four
Five
Six

Thnx!

I have something i need to clarify. My HSF gets up to a temp that is the threshold of burning myself. What temp is this? I can touch it, but I get burnt. Its just at that level.

I do know that temps above 60C are bad.

 

[goldragon_70]

I have something i need to clarify. My HSF gets up to a temp that is the threshold of burning myself. What temp is this? I can touch it, but I get burnt. Its just at that level.

I do know that temps above 60C are bad.

Well, that's a hard one to say, one our sensitivity to heat can very from person to person and moment to moment and two I've never been given a fact that a certain range of temps are hot, but I would say it's better to run a few temp programs to see what they are reading.

Coretemp .95
speedfan
rightmark

I wish I had a link to TAT, but can't find one right now (if you can find it, it will be a good reference too.)

 

[billdcat4]

I have something i need to clarify. My HSF gets up to a temp that is the threshold of burning myself. What temp is this? I can touch it, but I get burnt. Its just at that level.

I do know that temps above 60C are bad.

Well, that's a hard one to say, one our sensitivity to heat can very from person to person and moment to moment and two I've never been given a fact that a certain range of temps are hot, but I would say it's better to run a few temp programs to see what they are reading.

Coretemp .95
speedfan
rightmark

I wish I had a link to TAT, but can't find one right now (if you can find it, it will be a good reference too.)

I think we tried this at the beginning of this thread. TAT and Coretemp dont work with my prescott. Ill try speedfan and rightmark now

None of them work at all

 

[vic20]

It's dell, they use the cheapest sanest solution, but yea, any moding to help air flow will greatly reduces your temps.

Dell certainly does not use the cheapest solution for cooling. In fact, they design their own cooling system for almost all their machines. They use way more heavy copper heatsinks and/or heatpipes than any other OEM that I can think of. I've seen the odd HP with a large heatpipe cooler, but not very many. I'd say HP and Gateway typically go with the cheapest and most sane solution.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying they have a better design (might even be worse as their proprietary cooling designs make the mobo impossible to upgrade without modding), as I really haven't bothered to check the temps on the Dells I work on. But I can tell you they spend more money than many others.

 

[goldragon_70]

It's dell, they use the cheapest sanest solution, but yea, any moding to help air flow will greatly reduces your temps.

Dell certainly does not use the cheapest solution for cooling. In fact, they design their own cooling system for almost all their machines. They use way more heavy copper heatsinks and/or heatpipes than any other OEM that I can think of. I've seen the odd HP with a large heatpipe cooler, but not very many. I'd say HP and Gateway typically go with the cheapest and most sane solution.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying they have a better design (might even be worse as their proprietary cooling designs make the mobo impossible to upgrade without modding), as I really haven't bothered to check the temps on the Dells I work on. But I can tell you they spend more money than many others.

I worked in there tech support, and I admit there designs were great for the late 90's and the first few years of the 2000's, but they haven't changed there designs and are about to run into heat issues because of the way they deal with there air flow, which is were they skimp on there money, they usually have fewer fans then the others in there systems, and the plastic hood thing cost less then those fans to make so...

 

[billdcat4]

The Scary Side of My PC:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1691146#1691146

 

[asloane]

Please give us some pics of the green fan and plastic strip, thats what this thread was originally about.

In the pic below you can see the black strip in the top compartment

This is the view from the underside showing both fans. The black strip can be seen behind the left fan

A side view. The black strip is inside the left compartment and the fan has an upward arrow visible - this suggests that the air is moving inwards to the top of the shroud where it would hit the black strip. If that is so, then then the air could only exit if it drops down to the small rectangular opening above the fan (but hot air rises)

Hope this makes sense.

I haven't figured out the airflow yet because I am still trying to figure out if I can rehouse the motherboard in a standard ATX PSU case.

 

[goldragon_70]

It looks like the strip was to make it pull in air from the small area on the side, but that is not the best air flow for that design, maybe the dell engineers are losing it.

 

[vic20]

Looks to me that one of the fans blows against the black plastic, which deflects it down out of the enclosure and toward the motherboard voltage regulators.

The other fan looks to pull air from the heatsink and blow it outside the case.

Fire up the fan that faces the black piece while the enclusure is out of the case. Put your hand where the wire comes from the fan. If you feel air, this will verify the VRM cooling theory.

 

[goldragon_70]

That's really not going to move much heat either.

 

[vic20]

I never said it looks like a great design, I just said that's what it looks like it is supposed to do

 

[billdcat4]

See, thats what I took out of my dell. It just didnt seem to make any sense.

BTW, my HSF has been getting really hot lately after an hour or so of full load. Im not going to attribute this to the plastic strip, but to the fact that I redid the thermal paste with AS5, and now the CPU and HSF have a better connection. Im going to slap a 80mm fan on the right side of the HSF to help out the very weak cpu fans.

Sound good?

 

[vic20]

Well, unless you OC (which normally you can't do with a Dell, unless you have an Intel Extreme chip) VRM cooling is not needed. (assuming I'm right about what I see in the photo..)

So, if it was me, I'd rip the black plastic thing back out and reverse the fan so they both blow out the back of the case. If the heatsink is still very hot after that, then maybe add an additional fan .

OR consider cutting the hot and ground wires from the little black fan connectors. DO NOT cut the speed sensor wire, and plug the connector back into the mobo. Connect the ground to the black wire of a molex beside the yellow, and the hot fan wire to the yellow. This will feed 12v direct to speed them up while still sending the rpm to the bios so it doesn't get mad.)

 

[caamsa]

Here is the link for the Dell support site. Go down and look at the section on how to remove/replace the CPU. If you look at the picture of the heat sink I can see how this type of heat sink might requre the set up you are talking about to keep a good air flow over the heat sink.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dimxpsg3/SM/parts.htm#wp1062633

 

[nukemaster]

this gets more weird every time i visit. 2 dells that way. that little slot would cut the fans air flow by an extreme margin(and cause more noise, something dell would not want.). This will work. but is not efficient in any way. the air would flow out the slot over the vrms and back in the other slot. If this was the case the intake fan would spin VERRRY slow. can someone check this?

As said above. If you want more air flow make those fans run on 12 volts.

 

[vic20]

If the fan spins slow, redirecting the airflow downward at the board wouldn't be very noisy.

I can totally understand why Dell designed the system this way.

Normally, the round S775 OEM Intel cooler would blow air over the VRM. If you choose a passive cooler or water cool, there is no air blowing across the mobo near the socket, so a fan should be added specifically cool the VRM.

Instead of using a tiny fan to cool the VRM (like some ASUS and Gigabyte boards do), Dell has chosen to redirect air from a case fan.

IBM, HP and Dell almost never use small fans. They have been finding ways to redirect air from case fans for over 10 years now, because they have a much longer life and are much less likely to fail from getting dirty.

 

[billdcat4]

Well, unless you OC (which normally you can't do with a Dell, unless you have an Intel Extreme chip) VRM cooling is not needed. (assuming I'm right about what I see in the photo..)

So, if it was me, I'd rip the black plastic thing back out and reverse the fan so they both blow out the back of the case. If the heatsink is still very hot after that, then maybe add an additional fan .

OR consider cutting the hot and ground wires from the little black fan connectors. DO NOT cut the speed sensor wire, and plug the connector back into the mobo. Connect the ground to the black wire of a molex beside the yellow, and the hot fan wire to the yellow. This will feed 12v direct to speed them up while still sending the rpm to the bios so it doesn't get mad.)

wouldnt doing this increase the noise output a LOT?

its already loud enough...

what is the VRM? can anyone point out where my vrm is?what is it for and why od i need it to be cooled?

 

[nukemaster]

@ VIC20 - i had edited my post....to mention a slow fan for intake would work. 😛 must have been while you where replying to me

VRM's are the voltage regulators. they are near the cpu socket and make sure the cpu is getting clean power at all times. they can get hot....so the fan would cool them

yes. running the fans on 12 may increase the noise allot. this depends on where dell runs them. if they are running in the 5-7 range 12 will be LOUD. I always though the XPS's where supposed to be quiet? guess not.

 

[vic20]

VRM's are the voltage regulators. they are near the cpu socket and make sure the cpu is getting clean power at all times. they can get hot....so the fan would cool them

Exactly.

Look for small black squares on your mobo near your CPU billdcat

 

[goldragon_70]

I never said it looks like a great design, I just said that's what it looks like it is supposed to do

and you'll hear others saying that it's great too. I'm just saying with all the R&D Dell does, they should have come up with something new or better by now.