Not a good cooling system

Incorrect sir, it was the dark grey model, no side lit lettering, painted Red by me. Looks a million times better, imo. 

LOL, no. Yesterday, well after all these cooling fan issues, I painted the case. I was careful with the side and top panel vents, they are fine. Using the stock fan up top and two ml120's in front, I get decent cooling now under the fortnite load.

I use a custom fan profile of 100 percent offset for the stock radiator fan, and I use 70% for the ml120's, not pros.

Fans shudder and slow from time to time, but so far have recovered quickly, as I said in my other post. So far, this is quieter than fully stock, and more effective too.

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@digitalwiz wrote:

Incorrect sir, it was the dark grey model, no side lit lettering, painted Red by me. Looks a million times better, imo. 

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It does look nice!  Good job with the paint job.  I did not realize only the lunar white version lit up the alienware logo. 

I first noticed the fan sputtering and dying with aftermarket fans, I was surprised to see this behavior with the stock fans as well. The system is bad, not the fans, imo. 

@Tesla1856 So, you are sure it is not just the Nvidia card getting a bit noisy when stressed? Yes, It's the stock fans making all the noise. 

And if not, which fan is noisy (the front-fan or the radiator fan)? Which one? At this point, I have two ml120's and the stock radiator fan. The Stock radiator fan is many times noisier than the ML's. 

I had hoped going with stock fan would avoid the 70% at 70c sputter and fail fan behavior, unfortunately, after about a half hour of my son playing fortnite, and several instances of the fans stalling and recovering, they finally hit a sputter they couldn't recover from. Had to alt f4 my sons game and get the fans going again. Nice from a 4k computer. eh?

Now I have both stock and the ML's running max 70%. No stalling, but load temps are up in 70's again. 

Dell support is ready to replace my fans, but I'm not sure that'll fix the issue. It's clearly the AWcc and or motherboard bios. They insisted I upgrade to 1.08 bios, I'm on 1.05. But since the 1.07 and 1.08 don't say what they are dong under the hood, I don't want Dell nerfing the system performance instead of fixing the fans. So I'm unwilling to update the bios. 

True, you can not manually control the radiator-fan on the Asetek Cooler.

AFAIK, the only thing in the BIOS that relates to this is a "target or threshold temp." (around 70c). It adjusts the radiator-fan as needed to hold this temperature.

Yes, the UEFI-BIOS firmware flashes sometimes updates the Intel-ME (to prevent Meltdown, Spectre, etc.) but also any number of other things. You can not pick-and-choose. Anyway, I doubt it's the BIOS causing fan problems.

Historically, users like to blame AW-CC (software) and MIO-Board/Circuit (hardware) for fan and cooling problems, but it is usually the main core hardware ... the Asetek Liquid-Cooler. It is malfunctioning (pump or rad-fan) or not installed properly (not completely flat against CPU, improper thermal compound application, etc). AW-CC is usually just doing what it thinks is best.

CPUID's HW-Monitor is a great tool. MIN can be idle-desktop, and MAX can be gaming. It's all (CPU, GPU, fans, etc.) saved for later viewing side-by-side.

If I was you ... re-install stock fans. Get system back to stock. Not only will this prevent onsite-technician from freaking out due to obvious tampering, it should be easy for you demonstrate the problems (noise and cooling trouble). 

Let them replace fans (well, I think it's just front-fan, isn't it ?) and the whole Asetek Liquid-Cooler (rad-fan is part of Asetek). Be sure pump gets installed perfectly/properly onto CPU with new-proper thermal-compound (take no short-cuts).

Finally, system should be connected to AC-power through a good UPS-Battery (like a APC-1000 with LCD and AVR).

@Tesla1856 :

If I was you ... re-install stock fans. Get system back to stock. Not only will this prevent onsite-technician from freaking out due to obvious tampering, it should be easy for you demonstrate the problems (noise and cooling trouble). 

Our friend @digitalwiz has spray painted the machine. If I'm the technician, I'd freak out seeing a machine I don't recognize the color from the outside. 

@GTS81 I would hope they don’t freak out. It’s not like the color has anything to do with it. It’s only skin deep, lol. 

im done mucking with it for the time being. I’m not updating the bios, because I agree, it’s not likely a bios issue, contrary to what the dell desktop tech claims. He also says this forum is basically worthless compared to his level of support. So take that poke in the eye from offshore dell support. 

@digitalwiz :

He also says this forum is basically worthless compared to his level of support. So take that poke in the eye from offshore dell support. 

@Tesla1856 @r72019 @Anonymous @redxps630 

He also says this forum is basically worthless compared to his level of support.

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Now I'm sad and feel un-wanted and under-appreciated.

I think I might just go away now and not spend so much of my free time here ... helping users.

Thanks for helping me with the decision.

Us going away is exactly what that tech support person wants. I'm doubling down and digging my heel into the ground here.

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@digitalwiz wrote:

 I like custom painted cases here is my other desktop. 

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I've been waiting for that photo to load, and wow, that looks like a professional paint job. 

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@GTS81 wrote:

Us going away is exactly what that tech support person wants. I'm doubling down and digging my heel into the ground here.

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He probably prefers dealing with someone who knows nothing about computers that way he doesn't have to worry about answering hard questions or getting second guessed as to why he is doing something like update BIOs.