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Recommendations for Dell T3500 LED Case Fans Question

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Brian001

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Oct 30, 2016
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Fist I apologize if this question has been answered before. My son has a Dell T3500 Workstation that we made into a gaming computer for him. It's a great system and so far runs just about everything we have thrown at it. It does run a little hot but we looked into this and the temps are pretty normal as he has a X5677 CPU.
We are in the process of cutting out a section of the side panel to add in a window. He wanted to add in two fans in the back of the case with LED lighting. Looking at the way this system brings in air from the front and as the CPU does run at around 69c-73c under load (Gaming) I was wondering if it's even a good idea to add in case fans to the system. Would it redirect the flow and cause any issues? Pressure issues? Has anyone done this and can give us some advice? Maybe you have added in some LED Fans that you could link us to. Maybe this is just a bad idea and its a better idea to just add in LED Lighting to the case?

Dell T3500 Workstation
X5677
GTX 1060 mini
12gb ram

Thank you in advance for all you help.

 
Solution
Susquehannock
T3500 as gaming rig here too. That Xeon X5677 is in the Westmere family and should run fairly cool. Never a bad idea to re-seat the heatsink with some quality TIM.

Did some smoke tests on air flow patterns. These cases actually do pretty well. Found flow was better without the two 80mm that I installed. If you can, mount a 80mm fan to the cooler with zip ties in a pull configuration. Continues the flow out the back nicely. Here I have used rubber bands on the high flow fan to dampen harmonic vibrations.

Also, you should have a blue plastic memory shroud. Often missing. It is good at cooling the RAM, and for directing air from the lower front fan through the heatsink.

4EqN8ri.jpg


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Not sure what that processor is...
If you are planing on puting 2 fans in there then one should be set as intake and the other as exhaust.
Link to some fans:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00F6S0XJO/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483890182&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=corsair+led+red+fan&dpPl=1&dpID=51VHmYAnSkL&ref=plSrch
Intake means that the logo is facing the outside of the case, exhaust means that logo looks in the case.
Usually intakes are installed in the front and exhaust on the top or rear side of the case.
Hope I helped. Maybe a picture of the case would help :)
 
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Hi fellow t3500 owner here. Those temps are a bit hot but nothing to worry about. As long as all the original fans are there you'll be fine. However if you want to have it a bit cooler replacing the fans that come with it with better ones is an option. Also is there any dust buildup in the cpu cooler anywhere?
 
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Yes, I do Preventive Maintenance on the computers every 3 months. Blow and clean everything out (I'm going to check it again though as the post above said it was a little hot) I was thinking the temps with the xeon x5677 were normal. I just checked the CPU heat sink and it is free of dust and debris. (from what I can tell)
As far as the fans go I think I should have been clearer. I plan to keep the two stock fans in the front of the case then add if possible two fans to the back. Our T3500 does not have any fans in the back of the case but does have the slots to add them. My son wants the LED look for the case with the LED's.. but maybe now it might be a good idea to look at better fans if it is a little warmer than normal? Thank you both for replying. Which fan would you go with just out of curiosity. I'm going to take some pics of the back of the case and post them as well.
 
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T3500 as gaming rig here too. That Xeon X5677 is in the Westmere family and should run fairly cool. Never a bad idea to re-seat the heatsink with some quality TIM.

Did some smoke tests on air flow patterns. These cases actually do pretty well. Found flow was better without the two 80mm that I installed. If you can, mount a 80mm fan to the cooler with zip ties in a pull configuration. Continues the flow out the back nicely. Here I have used rubber bands on the high flow fan to dampen harmonic vibrations.

Also, you should have a blue plastic memory shroud. Often missing. It is good at cooling the RAM, and for directing air from the lower front fan through the heatsink.

4EqN8ri.jpg


 
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Solution
Thank you everyone for answering. The fan on the cpu cooler is interesting. I'll get that done then add LED lighting to the case and skip adding additional fans to the back of the computer.

Again thank you all
 
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One thing Dell is known for. Great case design. Noticed that the smoke was even being drawn in through the front USB and Firewire slots. No shortage of intake here.

Been thinking of a side window in mine too. Problem is the window would be against my desk side since the mother boards are backwards.
 
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When I get ours done I'll go ahead and post the picture on this tread. Its a pretty cool project. We will be having the side cut out in the Borderlands emblem on the case then adding blood red plasti-coat then the window. The LED idea was just to give the red effect on the back of the case. Figured I would add his LED Fans just to give it a little extra look. Now I think I am going to leave that part of the project alone. I don't want to mess up the air flow in the case.

Your adding in how the airflow actually works really helped me out.

 
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Sounds good. Look forward to see it.

Noticed that air is even coming out back of the PSU, which has no fan of it's own.

When I first got this thing it still had the original W3565 CPU. Thermal paste was probably 6-7 years old. Shot right up to 94-c in CPU stress tests. Front fans sounded like hurricane. Now it runs about 48-c at full load with better TIM, fan, and X5687 CPU. Fans hardly speed up at all.
 
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Ok so I really liked the fan idea on the cpu. One question though, how did u power it? There is a usb on the mobo... not sure if the usb will power the fan but thought that would be an easy fix?.

And just to put it out there... I removed the heatsink and it was almost welded to the cpu. Paste looked like concrete. I have paste but its older so figured i would order new and it should be in tomorrow. This tread has really helped me out so thanks again to everyone.
 
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I got out the soldering iron and made my own wires that run around back of the motherboard and up top to connect at the 4-pin molex by the PSU.

These rigs have great connectivity, 11 USB headers if you count ones on the board itself. But they are not made for modding. Only one 4-pin molex.

They do make USB to fan adapters. Heck, they even make USB powered desk fans. Adapters off the SATA power connectors is another option. 4-pin molex spliters are common too.
 
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update: My Thermal Paste finally came in (MX-4) and my first attempt at applying it was not the best. Second attempt.. WOW!! His cores on idle have dropped 10 degrees on the first core.. about 12 on the other three. My son tried one of his games and it's running in the 60s.. sometimes maybe hitting 70c but this does not last long as soon as the fans kick in. This is a huge improvement over what we were seeing before.

Susquehannnock, if you could answer this question I would appreciate it. I am going to hook up the fan you mentioned on the heat-sink. It just makes sense to me to follow the air path that is in the dell and not add the fans to the back. Anyway, I tried a few smaller zip ties and put them through the top of the heatsink just to see how I would attach the fan. They all seem to hit the copper running through the heatsink. (or very close) Did you run into this?.. Any problem if the plastic gets in contact with the copper? Does it get hot enough to melt it?

Hmm.... I started this thread all about adding LED lighting.. and ended up improving my son's computer. I really scored... :)
 
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Happy to help. :)
Sounds like you are trying to loop the ties around. Do this instead. Use a second one to zip on the ends. Requires 6 total. Unused ends are snipped off. Look closely at the image and you will see what I mean. In this way the ties install nice & square coming nowhere near the heat pipes.

Small pieces of foam rubber were used at the corners to keep the fan frame away away from the fins to eliminate vibrations. Outer rubber band keeps the ties nice and tight. Though you may forgo those if installing a window.

Note I say six zip ties total because of the clearance cut out on top corner. You'll see what I mean. Three mounts should be plenty. Hope that helps.

4EqN8ri.jpg
 
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I performed the mod to the heat sink this weekend with your method. (we used an LED fan) INCREDIBLE.. System is idle in the 25c-30c range.. Gaming at 40-50c range. My son now has his lighting shooting out he back of the case and I have peace of mind knowing he will not overheat the PC.

I did figure out what you were saying about the Heat Sink. I had to install it twice. fist time the end of the ties would not allow me to put the Ram Shroud back on. My fault I didn't check it. I cut the tie and re-positioned it. and all good.

I just finished up painting his front bezel this weekend with the borderlands theme and now it's on to working on the Mod to the side panel for the window. (This might take awhile).. looking at the panel again I need to research on u channel. The t3500 panel is thicker than my other PC I put a window on and has ridges everywhere.

im5c13vbn


Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you again. Your recommendation really helped us out!!
 
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Update: Ok back to my original problem. The case window... I think I figured out why I could not find any videos on modding this case with a window. I spent the day carefully grinding out spot welds to get the duel layered side case apart. I started at right below the Dell Logo. There is a bracket that needs to be kept above the logo that I was not sure if I should remove (Attaches to the case) so I left everything above the logo intact. I have quite a few tools at work and the end result was that normal hand metal snips worked the best for me. (I used everything from a dremel to a angle grinder neither one really did the trick) Ya, I know Angler Grinder is overkill but hey I had to try it.. So went back to the slow process of the snips.
I cut the window out (8 X 12 1/2). I used a hole saw for the four corners then followed up with a fine metal toothed blade on a jig saw. Followed up with the Dremel to grind down any burrs.
I just put the first coat of paint on the panel and it does look good. (Not the perfection I wanted but all in all I think my son is going t like it) My son is still going with the borderlands yellow and red.. Yellow shows up every single mark or mishap.. so when I do mine.. It's going to be all dark colored.
I'll do the second coat tomorrow and follow up with the trim molding on Saturday if it comes in. (I ordered 30 ft.) I put on some automotive door molding I had laying around just to see how it would work but it looked terrible so looks like I'm waiting until the U-Channel comes in.

Susquehannock if you're still around and thinking about doing this then I'll send some pics when I am done with it.

 
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My son's T3500 we just finished with the window. It's hard to see but I etched the borderlands psycho on the left hand side. It really shows up at night. I still need to add in an etch of the borderlands icon on the right hand side but as for now it's done. I think I'm going to make my sons day and have him clean his baseboards.. never noticed the floor was that nasty until I took the pic!!!

Thanks to everyone that helped out with this project. Especially with the fans. The extra fan that you cannot see is located on the heat sink.. lowered the CPU heat considerably. The fan that is showing is an LED we put in for lighting.
 
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Thanks brother. He's adding in the usb 3 card tonight when it comes in from Amazon. Have you upgraded your system with a usb 3.0 card? Also, this weekend a friend is coming over with his OR VR system and we are going to see if the 3500 can take VR. Have you ever tried VR on the T3500's?
 
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Hard to say if these older systems can handle VR. Would certainly require an upper end GPU and good processor.
Have discussed upgrading to USB 3 with fellow T3500 owners on other forums and nobody was sure how well it would work since these main boards are based on the X58 chipset which is USB 2. Cannot hurt to try. Let me know how it goes.
 
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Ok brother. I bought two usb 3 cards to try out the VR. The cheapest one worked and the more expensive one did not. (Also we tried VR on two different T3500's.) The usb that worked was from ideapro.. (This was exactly the opposite of what I was expecting)
T3500 12gb ram, W3670 with Zotac 1060 mini 6gb
T3500 12gb ram, W3690 with Zotac 1060 mini 6gb
It took awhile and someone much smarter than me to figure out to configure the VR to work. When it was done it was absolutely flawless. It actually worked better on the W3670 for some reason. The W3690 is faster so maybe it had something to do with how I configured the systems in the bios when I put it together. (This is the one that I made out of spare parts since the N series disaster)

My only problem now is my friend took his VR with him.. and.. I REALLY MISS IT!!! Will have to start saving my quarters...

Anyway, figured I would let you know I tried it and it did work. It actually worked really well.
 
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