Dell XPS 730 h2c problem

Thanks!  I was able to get the chipset cooler off along with the whole assembly eventually.  Sure enough it had leaked on the chipset and was bonded somewhat around where the screws that connect to the motherboard.  The majority of the chipset surface appears to be ok however so I hope I can salvage it.  As far as the cleaner do you have a brand that you know of off hand that I could try?  I have some ArtiClean thermal material removal liquid...would that work potentially?  Also, I had one other question.  It does not appear that there was any thermal grease between the chipset surface and the chipset cooler.  Do I need to apply thermal grease when I attach the chipset heatsink or no?

Thanks so much!

There's a difference between the "chipset" and the CPU (processor), so not sure which you mean...If you're talking about the CPU, you could try using the ArctiClean. Read and follow the instructions and don't let it drip on everything.

The H2c should have had thermal paste applied between the processor and the heatsink. (Refer to step 6 for replacing the H2c cooler in the instructions linked in my previous post.)

You should apply a small amount of thermal paste (eg, Arctic Silver)  to the CPU before installing the replacement heatsink. (Refer to step 6 for replacing  the air cooler at the link in my previous post.)

Ron

Thanks guys!  I'll apply the artic silver to both and report back.  Hopefully this I'll be able to have this puppy up and running with air cooling.

I am using an OEM version of Windows 7 that I have on hand.

What you're doing might not be legal... :emotion-40:

Dell offers drivers for this system for both Win 7 32-bit and 64-bit, so you proabably shouldn't have any issues, as long as you install the correct drivers in the correct order. System Utilities (System Software) should be the first driver installed after loading Windows, followed by the video driver. I don't see a chipset driver or a NIC driver listed for this system running Win 7, so I presume those are all built into the OS.

Don't know about the RAM module you have or that fan module. There are instructions for installing fans in the 730 here.

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed / replaced from this post by Dell>

Ron

Update:

I cleaned off the chipset heatsink really welI and the processor heat spreader with ArctiClean got all the air cooling elements installed. The rebooting problem is gone!  I am in the process of installing Windows 7 to do some testing, and everything seems to be working great.  I'm installing updates right now.  Is there anything I should know about Windows 7 and the Dell XPS 730?  Are there components that won't work with this version of Windows?  The PC originally had Windows Vista installed, but the person I bought the computer from didn't send the system restore disks so I am using an OEM version of Windows 7 that I have on hand.

Also, The seller had some Kingston hyper X memory installed, but he did not have the RAM fans installed.  It is a piece that clips over the RAM with two blue LED fans in it.  Anyways, I've noticed that there are several 3-pin fan hookups on the motherboard, and the RAM fan assembly has a three pin plug.  I plugged this in to the three pin pinout called "VREG FAN" that is located nearby the CPU socket and chipset heatsink.  The fans and lights do not work with it plugged into this plug.  They do kick on briefly right as the PC powers off.  All the other system fans are working great.  I just figured that the motherboard had some extra plug ins for extra case fans that users could install as an upgrade.  Am I mistaken, and if so what are these extra fan pinouts for on the motherboard?

thanks so much for all of your help!

It's totally legal.  I purchased an OEM copy of Windows 7 from Micro Center. 

Thanks for everyone's help and advice

I just wanted to give an update in case anyone is interested, and I think it will be helpful for XPS 730 owners. 

I installed Windows 64bit and everything seemed fine at first until I started doing some video card benchmarks.  I started getting blue screens with the error code 0x00000124 nearly all the time with these benchmarks, and I would also get some freeze ups as well occasionally when Windows would load and also just randomly.  I was tearing my hair out trying to pinpoint the problem, and I was worried it was a hardware error because apparently that is one of the causes of this error code.  First I uninstalled the Sound Blaster card and enabled the onboard audio because I heard that the card and driver can cause problems, but I still had problems.  I was holding out hope it was software, and after reinstalling Windows for the fourth time, I finally figured out what the culprit is.  This last install I installed all Windows updates pausing to check for blue screens, and then after all of the updates installed, I started loading programs one by one.  After each program load I would run the 3dmark06 test that was causing blue screens.  I didn't start having them again until I loaded the Nvidia ESA tools from their website.  As soon as this program package was installed the blue screens reoccured.  The only reason I loaded this tool in the first place was because I wanted a way to change fan speeds and the LED colors.  I uninstalled this program package (There are three programs in all), and the blue screens went away.  I left the Sound Blaster card out because the onboard sound seems fine for my purposes and I'd rather leave well enough alone.

I have found that the AlienFX program works great, and is stable for setting up an LED profile, and I also started using the XPS Thermal Monitoring program to change fan speeds and set up cooling profiles.  I also have set up the Dell standard overclock of the QX9770 CPU to 3.8ghz's.  I have set up a profile for this overclock with the front CPU fan at 50% and the PCI fan at 20%.  The CPU cores idle between 36-42C, and the max load temp under normal use I have scene via core temp is 65C.  I have also set up a performance profile for times of extreme processor stress with the front CPU fan up to 100%.  I ran Prime95 for over an hour with this profile and the max temp was 70C recorded by core temp.  I know people say you should stress for 8 hours or more, but IMO there are very few circumstances when all of your cores will be over 100% for more than an hour so I'm fine with the testing.  I think the temps will get even better in a few days once the AS5 has burned in all the way (maybe a few degrees?).

One other thing I played with was a slight RAM overclock.  I have 8 gigs of RAM installed of Kingston HyperX memory (khx2000c9d3t1k2) with the cooling fan module.  The original seller had this RAM installed, and I was concerned when I first examined the system because when I got the PC in the mail I noticed that the RAM was PC3 16000 and rated at 2000mhz.  After I installed the air cooling and was able to actually boot the PC, I noticed that the RAM was only clocked at 1333mhz so this is what the bios most default to.  When I set up the CPU overclock I noticed that the EPP 2.0 RAM feature was not detected so I proceeded with the CPU overclock for "regular memory" as outlind in the Dell XPS 730 spec.  EPP RAM, when installed, will be overclocked to 1600 mhz by the bios with EPP enabled.  Since my RAM doesn't have this feature I set out to manually overclock it to 1600 mhz by unlinking the FSB from the memory bus in the system bios and setting the memory bus to 1600mhz. 

I ran 3dmark06 again and the benchmarks were slightly better, but I encountered a few lock ups (no blue screens), and the computer booted in safe mode a few times telling me to reset the CPU or the RAM speed to their original speeds.  I immediately thought that it was the RAM setting that was causing the instability because with the CPU alone overclocked I had no such issues.  I knew the RAM could handle it because it is rated for 2000mhz and 1.65v and it is also performance memory with large heatsinks designed for extreme overclocks.  I read around the net and I found that I probably needed to bump up the RAM voltage to give it a "little more juice" to support it's overclock and make the overclock stable.  So I nudged the voltage up in the bios to 1.525 up from 1.5.  No more problems!  I ran memtest86+ for an hour and I didn't encounter any errors. 

Then I thought to myself maybe I can bump the voltage up to 1.65V (since that is what the RAM is rated for), set the memory clock to 2000mhz, and manually enter the timings of 9-10-9-27 for this overclock.  Bad idea.  The computer did not like that!  As soon as I saved the the new settings to the bios the screen went black and I heard one long beep.  I then had to do a hard reset by holding in the power button.  I then powered on the computer again and set the speed back to 1600 mhz and the voltage to 1.525.  The machine is stable again.  I ran memtest86+ for about five hours and didn't encounter any errors.  I think the RAM can be pushed further, but I don't want to risk screwing the PC up now that I have it working nice and stable.  Perhaps this bios is set to not except speeds over 1600mhz...I dunno.  It's plenty fast as it is.

My Windows 7 ratings are

7.5 Processor

7.5 RAM

7.7 Aero

7.7 Graphics

5.7 Disk Transfer rate (Older Seagate 160gb hard drive I use for testing systems)

I plan on getting a small SSD (32gb?) for the operating system and a 1TB hard drive for everything else.  I just wanted to wait to make sure everything was running well.  Maybe in the future I'll splurge for an X panel, and the lower front fan XPS shroud for air cooled systems to replace the H2C shroud.  Anyways, thanks again for everyone who gave me advice.  It's a good feeling to have this rig finally running strong because there were times I really thought I was screwed.  *Hopefully* it will keep running well *knocking on wood.*

Cheers

What kind of air cooling you got i have an xps730 same h2c leaked.