Unique Dell Optiplex SFF problem.

[khenderson42]

I have a Dell Optiplex 745 Small Form Factor, it is not my main PC, however since FIFA 14 is cheaper on the PC than PS3 and not graphically intensive I thought I'd do a little upgrading to it. My worry however is cooling. The reason I say my problem is unique is because I've not found any case/fan mods for this case with the modifications I've done to it. Originally I had an old xbox fan modded to work off of USB power stuck to the back.

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This was fine - I have also reversed the CPU fan so the xbox fan was acting as a intake fan -however I've got an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 and a Sapphire HD 7750 LP on their way to give it a bit of a boost. Due to having a PCI-E card I can no longer keep this configuration as it's blocking the connections. The "modifications" I spoke of earlier is simply the fact I've removed the large Hard Drive that came with it and put in a laptop Hard Drive I had laying around, It is stored away under the DVD drive where the floppy drive once was. This helped cool everything down a bit as there was a bit more airflow and the xbox mod helped a bit too. This is also means that the caps will hopefully last longer.

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So simply I'd like to know, is there anything I could do to ensure it keeps cool once the HD 7750 is in and the xbox fan is removed or should it be ok?

 

[Kisianik]

Hi dear

You did already more than others in similar situation, except one thing - CPU heatsink. Unfortunately I am on iPhone, so posting pictures is impossible so let me talk.
Q6600 requires copper heatsink, it is used in your PC with certain CPU. So take a look inside, do you see yellow heatpipes and horizontal fins or heatsink looks completely white, with vertical fins without heatpipes.
The one without heatpipes is aluminum and not good for Q6600.

Also, it is sounds completely insane, you can overclock your CPU from 2.4 GHz to 3.0 GHz. But this is when you are set with cooling.

Second question, have you reversed CPU fan, it was designed to suck air from the front and exhaust in the back.

Enough for now, your turn.

 

[khenderson42]

Hi dear

You did already more than others in similar situation, except one thing - CPU heatsink. Unfortunately I am on iPhone, so posting pictures is impossible so let me talk.
Q6600 requires copper heatsink, it is used in your PC with certain CPU. So take a look inside, do you see yellow heatpipes and horizontal fins or heatsink looks completely white, with vertical fins without heatpipes.
The one without heatpipes is aluminum and not good for Q6600.

Also, it is sounds completely insane, you can overclock your CPU from 2.4 GHz to 3.0 GHz. But this is when you are set with cooling.

Second question, have you reversed CPU fan, it was designed to suck air from the front and exhaust in the back.

Enough for now, your turn.

I have already reversed the CPU fan to pull air out the front of the case a while ago whilst still using the Pentium D. I have already checked, I have the copper one thankfully (got the PC for £35 off eBay originally for a Minecraft Server). I also checked and the PSU fan works as an intake so that should be pulling air in over the motherboard and out the front. Does the WK833 motherboard have overclocking options? And would it be advisable with a stock heatsink?

 

[Kisianik]

Due to mine limited Internet you have to search for "Q6600 tape mode" ot "BSEL mode" by yourself.
Basically, you would have to use conductive ink pen or conductive small piece of tape to connect 2 pins on processor, thus you can increase speed to only one position - 3 GHz.
It was done on Mini Towers, but I did not hear much about SFF or DT form factors.

If you do this, please post results.

I hope you have some temperature monitoring software?!

Anything else I can help you with?

 

[khenderson42]

Googled BSEL mod, unfortunately it increases the FSB to 1333MHz which makes it incompatible with the WK833 Dell motherboard. One of the reasons that the Q6600 or Q6700 is the highest you can go on this motherboard. With only an HD7750 in it I doubt the CPU will be a bottleneck. At least not before the GPU is. I will just wait until the components arrive and see how cooling goes as it is and come back here if temps are too high.
Thanks Kisianik.