This PC is out of warranty and the support center doesn't seem too concerned with questions especially about upgrades. When I bought the Dell Studio 540 for my wife, she never bothered to check the NVIDIA 9600 GTX or know what she was missing. One day when my laptop went back to the Lenovo mother ship, I set up the drivers for the display and it looked nice for our purposes. Then, we noticed on seemingly heavy activity, the fans began to sound like a vacuum cleaner ... I have heard it described in more colorful language.
I have looked at the build list and there was supposed to be a Prescott CPU installed but the build list has a deviation note. In fact, the Dell tech rep said that my 540 was definitely a Prescott CPU. The deviation and Window 7 says it is a Q9650, 3.0, 12MB Yorkfield, E0 CPU. Again, according to the build sheet, the heat sink is a K078D Assembly, Heatsink, Fan, 95W MNTW/SLTW. I believe Windows 7 is reporting the hardware correctly but there are deviations all over the build list … assembled June of 2009.
This makes it very difficult for me to determine if the GPU/CPU combination is causing the PSU to take off like a rocket and what I should do. I have searched many forums and heard other, similar complaints. I just have never seen a definitive answer or this particular configuration.
Dell Studio 540 (not the slim one) hardware config:
Q9650, 3.0, 12 Mb Yorkfield, E0 CPU
8 Gb RAM (Is it correct the Q9650 can support up to 12 Gb but no way to get it in the case?)
NVIDIA 9600 GTX GPU
2) 1.5 Tb disk drives
DVD+ R/W 16X
10/100 Ethernet and 802.11 a/g/n wireless.
I thought this little machine could make a half decent HTPC now that I replaced the 540 with a nice, new laptop for my wife. She turned the Studio 540 off and wouldn’t use it when the fan noise became intolerable. I am not saying it got worse, it just had to be shut down at night from the beginning. It has the latest and greatest BIOS from Dell (such that it is). There haven’t been updates to BIOS since 2010. All other software is up to date.
This is frustrating. I would appreciate advice. Do I dump the Dell and buy something else for an HTPC? That would seem such a shame only because of outrageous fan noise and I can't imagine shoving it in a closet either. It is more convenient to have it relatively near the rest of the media gear. Otherwise, the 540 performs well. Thanks in advance for suggestions.
I have looked at the build list and there was supposed to be a Prescott CPU installed but the build list has a deviation note. In fact, the Dell tech rep said that my 540 was definitely a Prescott CPU. The deviation and Window 7 says it is a Q9650, 3.0, 12MB Yorkfield, E0 CPU. Again, according to the build sheet, the heat sink is a K078D Assembly, Heatsink, Fan, 95W MNTW/SLTW. I believe Windows 7 is reporting the hardware correctly but there are deviations all over the build list … assembled June of 2009.
This makes it very difficult for me to determine if the GPU/CPU combination is causing the PSU to take off like a rocket and what I should do. I have searched many forums and heard other, similar complaints. I just have never seen a definitive answer or this particular configuration.
Dell Studio 540 (not the slim one) hardware config:
Q9650, 3.0, 12 Mb Yorkfield, E0 CPU
8 Gb RAM (Is it correct the Q9650 can support up to 12 Gb but no way to get it in the case?)
NVIDIA 9600 GTX GPU
2) 1.5 Tb disk drives
DVD+ R/W 16X
10/100 Ethernet and 802.11 a/g/n wireless.
I thought this little machine could make a half decent HTPC now that I replaced the 540 with a nice, new laptop for my wife. She turned the Studio 540 off and wouldn’t use it when the fan noise became intolerable. I am not saying it got worse, it just had to be shut down at night from the beginning. It has the latest and greatest BIOS from Dell (such that it is). There haven’t been updates to BIOS since 2010. All other software is up to date.
This is frustrating. I would appreciate advice. Do I dump the Dell and buy something else for an HTPC? That would seem such a shame only because of outrageous fan noise and I can't imagine shoving it in a closet either. It is more convenient to have it relatively near the rest of the media gear. Otherwise, the 540 performs well. Thanks in advance for suggestions.