How to mount a cpu cooler on the Dell Precision T3500

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bambiboom


Merphy,

The T3500 motherboard may have the standard spacing for a conventional LGA1366 fan / heatsink, but I'm not absolutely certain as the T35500 has a proprietary fan, heatsink, and shroud. It's possible but not certain without knowing the spacing of the mounting screws. Somehow, in the plan view of the M/B, the holes look quite far apart and that is to accommodate the shroud that encloses the...
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Merphy,

The T3500 motherboard may have the standard spacing for a conventional LGA1366 fan / heatsink, but I'm not absolutely certain as the T35500 has a proprietary fan, heatsink, and shroud. It's possible but not certain without knowing the spacing of the mounting screws. Somehow, in the plan view of the M/B, the holes look quite far apart and that is to accommodate the shroud that encloses the heatsink all around.

If you are going to be using an LGA1366 CPU on a Dell Precision T3500 motherboard, you may as well buy a T3500 and use the uprated steel /Copper heatsink. The T3500 can use any of the 4 and 6-core LGA1366, W3500, W3600, X5500, and X5600 CPU's. The 6-core X5690 3.47 /3.73GHz is the highest power user at 130W, can't be overclocked, and in the T3500 can run at full performance all the time using the uprated cooler. The nice feature of the arrangement ins that the T3500 fan /shroud, heatsink arrangement is very quiet. I have a T3500 with an X5677 4-core 3.47 /3.73GHz which is also 130W and on long 3D CAD and moderate rendering, it never falters. That system cost $53 + $24 shipping and was fully functional. I added $43 of RAM, plus $60 for the X5677 and plugged in a PERC 6'i RAID controller, 15K SAS drive, left over Quadro 4000 and it goes very well.

Also, there may or may not be certain features of the T3500 motherboard that will not match perfectly with a new case, and certain details won't fit. The one I can think of is the HD activity light has a 3-pin connector and on the PERC H310- which is a RAID controller newer than the T3500, the lead is 4-pin as does the 2013 and 2015 HP z420's.

If you intend to use LGA1366 Xeons in a new case, you might consider a new Supermicro LGA1366 motherboard and this will go into a standard new case and use a standard, high performance LGA1366 cooler. These will have a more modern slot arrangement- fewer PCI- and can use more RAM. The 24GB limit of the T3500 may or may not be enough for your use. The T3500 here has 12GB- filling all 6 slots with 2GB modules and now I wish I had the full 24GB. My other systems have 32GB and 48GB.

Also, you might consider a Precision T5500 which has an 875W power supply and 12 RAM slots. With a CPU/memory /fan riser, it can have two LGA Xeons.

By the way, both the T3500 and T5500 have two GPU slots- but not SLI capability.

I'm a big fan of LGA1366- the performance is still completely usable, the price is amazingly low, and the three LGA systems I've had have been 100% reliable hardware.

Another quick suggestion: If you use the T3500 motherboard, consider a PERC H310 or LSI 9240 controller and that will convert the disk system to 6GB/s. In the T5500 listed, the Passmark disk score changed from 1940 to 2649.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

LGA1366 Systems:

Dell Precision T3500 (2011) (Rev 2) Xeon X5677 4-core @ 3.46 / 3.73GHz > 12GB (6X 2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC > Quadro 4000 (2GB) > PERC 6/i + Seagate 300GB 15K SAS ST3300657SS + WD Black 500GB > 525W PSU> Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > 2X Dell 19" LCD
[Passmark system rating = 2751, CPU = 7236 / 2D= 658 / 3D=2020 / Mem= 1875 / Disk=1221]


Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Revised) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6-core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Logitech z313 > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 / CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3550 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)




 
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Solution


Thank you for your quick respond . I would just like to ask of you some questions. 1) are you just using a stock fan 2) could you link me to one of those Supermicro atx mobos, and 3) could you link me too some cheap ram, I heard that these older motherboards have strangley cheap ram, like 64gbs for 60 bucks.
 
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"Thank you for your quick respond . I would just like to ask of you some questions. 1) are you just using a stock fan 2) could you link me to one of those Supermicro atx mobos, and 3) could you link me too some cheap ram, I heard that these older motherboards have strangley cheap ram, like 64gbs for 60 bucks."


Merphy,


The two LGA1366 systems- Dell Precision T3500 and T5500 are both using the stock Fans, heatsink and shroud. As the T5500 has two 130W 6-cores and the CPU's never go over 60C, even on long all core rendering slogs, I've never had reason to change it. The Precision T5400 was a bit different as it had two 130W CPU's but also DDR2 RAM which often ran at 80C+. I kept planning extra case fans on the rear panel but never did it.

Supermicro LGA1366 single socket motherboards

Supermicro LGA1366 dual socket motherboards

Notice that some of the dual Xeon boards can use up to 384GB of RAM,

As for RAM, the X58 chipset for LGA1366 is triple channel so think in terms of sets of three modules. The T3500 has 6 slots and I use 6X 2GB and the T5500 has 6 slots on the motherboard- 6X 4GB plus 3 slots on the CPU riser board- 3X 8GB for 24 +24. You'll see that typically, the single LGA1366 system can use unbuffered ECC or non ECC while the dual CPU systems will be using ECC registered. The T3500 uses ECC or Non ECC unbuffered and the T5500 is ECC registered. Registered will not mix with unbuffered and registered will not work in the T3500. I don't know about the the Supermicro boards as there must be 25 different models,.. By the way, if you're in the US, Superbiiz has a lot of Supermicro. I buy all my used RAM on Ebahhhh. As servers use ECC registered, it's cheaper as those servers use a lot of RAM and the whole system is decommissioned after three years. The RAM will be DDR3-1333 or PC3-10600E for ECC unbuffered and PC3-10600R for registered.

One big shortcut to a high performance, server quality LGA1366 system is to use a Supermicro Superworkstation which includes the case, motherboard, CPU cooler(s) and bit power supply- you just plug in the CPU(s), RAM, GPU(s), and drives and go. Those however may be all dual CPU-not sure and in the $650 range. Saves a lot time researching, buying, wiring, and assembly.

Cheers,

BambiBoom
 
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I have a T3500 Xeon W3565 3.2 and the CPU often reaches 90C at almost no load. I wish to add a CPU fan but dont know the airflow direction for this particular system. It seems to be from front to back. Is this correct? I have a couple threads trying to get help working on this Dell if you could help please do so. thanks
 
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Rodney_21,

Four possibilities to start with:

1. If the CPU is not the original, the system may have retained the lower-rated cast Aluminum one, whereas it should have the Steel plates and Copper pipe up-rated one.

2. The CPU was not properly installed and should be remounted with a correct amount of thermal paste.

3. Not all fans are running.

4. If the system is new to you, update the BIOS, which also controls the fans.

My guess is leaning towards No. 2.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 
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Thanks. I've now had this PC for almost a month. I am convinced that in the first weeks of ownership ,before I updated the BIOS, before I noticed the extra CPU activity my system my have had a bot net or virus that was effecting performance because as states in the original month old post above, it was always hot, and always ramped up and fans howling. For the first week or so, the CPU load level was always way too high, even at times when I was doing nothing/had nothing in background. The system was acting much different than it does now

Cut to a few weeks later, I updated the BIOS, turned off a lot of extra background apps, it started to run cooler. About a week ago, I turn it on to a fatal "front cage fan failure" error . I learned how to reset it and get the fans to respond but still am waiting on a replacement fan cage. This should be fixed soon as they supposedly shipped the new fans out today.

You are right. I have the cheap aluminum CPU heatsink, and the fan cage is an inch away from it so this is partly the reason it's getting hot because in every t3500 pic I see of any motherboard has a different heatsink with heat tubes. Mine is just a tall wavy aluminum piece of crap.That is some inches away from the fan to be of any real effect. It needs it's own dedicated fan, which I already have. I just need two questions answered.

When adding a CPU fan to a Dell like this or any other PC which doesn't already have a CPU fan, where should I plug the fan in? I can either buy a splicer that is the same size as the existing cooling cage fan and splice from that circuit.. bad idea? Or I can get the power straight from the Power Supply, which would not give me control over speed, or RPM indication.

Even if I find a nice aftermarket cpu cooler many of them come with fans. I have to plug it in somewhere. Where please?

thanks for any answer. I don't know where to ask this stuff and I need CPU cooliing added bad or my PC is gonna die one day.

Can anyone link me to so not some CPU heatsink replacements that are affordable? If I wish to attach a fan to the existing aluminum heatsink, which direction should airflow go? Toward the back?

 
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I installed the proper heatsink for my CPU and added exhaust fans. It runs within acceptable temps. I was sent a new set of fans and it still gives me fan errors on occasion. So far I just deal with it.

One thing I can't figure out now is why there is no option in the bios for fan control, and speed fan will *not* recognize the fans in this system. I updated the BIOS and chipset drivers.
 
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As someone who is trying to add more fans to my T3500, how did you end up connecting your fans?

I've found of PWM splitter which uses SATA power and has 8 4pin fan connections. It's also got a fan speed control switch on its board. I'm thinking of mounting the extra CPU cooler fans to this but I'm afraid that I won't be able to control the fans through software and they won't be able to ramp up speed as the cpu picks up load because the BIOS lacks PWM support.
 
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