Did Dell Screw Up? - Page 2

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

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...

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/Prod [...] 32%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.

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

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...

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.

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.

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

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.)

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.

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?

Exactly.

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

This XPS GEN 5 shroud photo shows the fans blowing the same way - which I assume is downwards



http://www.justechn.com/reviews/articles/2005/08/15/dell_xps_gen_5.php

the heatsink, the one shown next to the picture you show, looks like the heatsink that I'm using, so I wonder if you can put a fan on it blowing through the fins like mine.

With a large fan mounted on the back of the case, it may give better airflow.

Yeah, the heatsink is just like a Tuniq tower, only a tad smaller.

You could rip out the shroud, mount the fans directly to the back of the case blowing out. Then mount a fan on the right hand side of the heatsink, blowing towards the back for sure.

"Git 'r done" billdcat and post some pics

Yeah, the heatsink is just like a Tuniq tower, only a tad smaller.

You could rip out the shroud, mount the fans directly to the back of the case blowing out. Then mount a fan on the right hand side of the heatsink, blowing towards the back for sure.

"Git 'r done" billdcat and post some pics

So I think we've decided that the plastic piece is meant to direct airflow to cool the VRMs or VMRs or whatever. This isnt necessary though, since I am not OCing.

I plan to keep the fans and shroud intact and slap a 80mm LED fan on the right side of the HSF blowing air from the case into the shroud. Its rated at 30cfm or so. It should be able to lower my temps quite a bit.

Does anyone have any specific recommendations on a good 92mm or 80mm fan, and any good ideas on how to mount it? Cheaper is better, oh and also on the egg.

Yeah, the heatsink is just like a Tuniq tower, only a tad smaller.

You could rip out the shroud, mount the fans directly to the back of the case blowing out. Then mount a fan on the right hand side of the heatsink, blowing towards the back for sure.

"Git 'r done" billdcat and post some pics

So I think we've decided that the plastic piece is meant to direct airflow to cool the VRMs or VMRs or whatever. This isnt necessary though, since I am not OCing.

I plan to keep the fans and shroud intact and slap a 80mm LED fan on the right side of the HSF blowing air from the case into the shroud. Its rated at 30cfm or so. It should be able to lower my temps quite a bit.

Does anyone have any specific recommendations on a good 92mm or 80mm fan, and any good ideas on how to mount it? Cheaper is better, oh and also on the egg.

I bought a 4-pack of Thermaltake 80mm fans from the egg for $12 two days ago. As I came home today at 12:30, I saw the UPS guy leaving my doorstep.

I got a LOT of stuff, it shipped in 5 packages: one from Tennessee, two from NJ, and two from Cali.

I taped one of the fans to the green shroud so that it blows into the HSF.

I cant comment on noise, because of all the other fans in my case, but it doesnt make the PC louder.

I then played Battlefield Vietnam for around 45min, something that would have heated up my HSF quite a lot. I opened my case and felt the part of the HSF above the fan and it was MUCH MUCH cooler. It felt only slightly above room temperature. Not bad for a $3 fan.

I have to find some wire to rig it to the heatpipes themselves. Until then, its taped on.

I also bought a $3 Silverston FN81 fan, but soon after buying I realized that it didnt have a molex connecter. Oh well, what the hell. Im sure Ill find some use for it.

this just proves how cheap dell has gotten.


Edit to think one $3 fan can cut down the temps like that, and improve the life of someones computer, less to pay on tech support. I will no longer indorse dell for anything. Maybe HP as a prebuilt now.

Nice. You may want to switch to duct tape though.

Its way more ghetto!

hehehe

I like how the orange/red stands out.

[quote="billdcat4"]

maybe shorted something, or there was a hug heat spike and drop (Flesh is not as conductive with heat as air is) that probably tripped something in the bios.

[quote="billdcat4"]

maybe shorted something, or there was a hug heat spike and drop (Flesh is not as conductive with heat as air is) that probably tripped something in the bios.

i hope its okay...

now how about the ram?


It should be ok, as for the ram, I can't say for sure, but I think they will run, but at the slowest speed, and you will probably want to set the new set of ram in a different channel then the others.

nice colors

Bill
Put a sack on you're head.

I like the new avatar better then then old one that you had.