New 8300 and fan replacement

OMG, I was just going to start a new thread on this when I came across this one. I've had my 8300 since christmas now, but although I have noticed this since then, lately the fan is driving me CRAZY!! After 10-15 minutes you cannot here yourself thing and I have to shut it down... I cannot play games i.e Flight Simulator or anything else for that matter because it gets so loud ! Also if you run programs like virus scans it just goes crazy. Sometimes when I switch on the computer after turning it off after the noise gets too bad, it goes so loud for the first few seconds I really do thing that's its going to blow up!!

I thought it was because I had a Radeon Pro graphicd card??

 

Anyway, can this be changed like Laurie asked?

This is a user to user forum. Call Dell Support for an answer.

the funny thing is the power supply fan is totally silent. You don't even know it's running.

How hot really does a cpu get  that the fan has too run so fast???? If you want a good laugh, install chessmater 9000 and play some games.

Jet engine time.

user to user forum? yes we know that. thats why i was asking other users that have an 8300 if they had done something to remedy this. Dell would be sooo helpful alright. Support from Bangladore,India !!!

Yes, Mary G, I do understand that I can contact Dell but I also understand that they won't provide me with the information I am looking for, namely a third party fan that will do the job but do so quietly. I got a great price for a good performance machine and while I am somewhat disappointed that Dell has not changed their design given pretty significant feedback that this fan is not acceptable, I also understand the probable whys and wherefores behind this. I was just hoping that some other user who already dealt with this could give me some specifics.

Thanks,

Laurie

The Dimension 8300 fan is loud because the power supply wire is hitting the fan when its spinning. In order to make the fan to go to normal speed. Open the case and check the fan and move away the power supply wire. That should fix the Extreme noise coming from the fan.  Also its normal for a fan to make little noise. It just tells that the fan is working. If it was so silent. Then we would not know whether the fan is working or not. Also its normal that the fan goes little bit more louder. Because if the pc is tasked heavily. Then the fan have to do hard work. That can make the noise louder. Once the pc is not doing anything again. Then the fan goes down to its normal speed.

Punjabimunda - although that may have been your particular problem, it is not what most of us have experienced.  The problem is the use of a thermoregulated fan that triggers too early and sounds like a turbo jet.

Original Poster - search the forum, there have been quite a number of posts from various folks that describe methods of swapping out the fan.  The size is a standard 92mm fan, 3 pin.

Good luck.

First, english isnt my native language, so forgive me any mistakes plz ;)

I have that Dimension 8300 too (and that noise problem) and i modificated it as follows:

1. i replaced the big loud fan under the green plastic device with a Papst Fan 3412/NGL 92x92x25 mm, connected that new fan to a molex connector (4 pins)

2. i replaced the cpu cooling device with a Zalman CNPS 7000A-AlCu, i put it on the motherboard connector (i replaced the old dell retention module (dell oem) as well with a new standard one and modified it a little bit so it fits to the board)

you must do both steps, because the papst isnt powerful enough to cool that hot prescott and the zalman alone cannot put the hot air out of the case, but both modifications together are very nice (and silent) ;)

in the future i will mod the power supply a bit with another more silent fan (papst)

btw: there are 2 grills in front of the power supply fan, you can cut out the (not necessary) grill from the computer case to make the dimension even more silent

No, Punja, it wasn't anything like the power wire hitting the fan. And Vega, thanks for providing your solution, although I wish I had a little more detail on the mods you made. But for those of you who aren't sure just what the noise is, just remove the fan over the heat sink and reboot. It isn't too difficult to get the green plastic hood off and then pop out the fan. Pure quiet. Put it back in and voile you are back on the runway. I have now spent way too many hours learning about cpu fans and heat sinks and specs for all this stuff ;-)

I looked at the Papst but the CFM *is* too little to properly cool the CPU. Then I investigated the Antec SmartCool 92mm (40CFM), but the connector won't fit in the weird motherboard connector. Next I am going to look at the Zalman ZM-F2 which without the resistor is rated to 50 CFM, although I am not positive that is still enough. I suppose I am going to have to cut wires and replace the connector, which I did not want to do. And Vega, you are probably correct in that one fan isn't going to do it. But I wish I could at least find one that had the same connector.  While I am sure I got a great price on this machine, I have learned my lesson and won't buy another Dell because I will not deal with all this proprietary stuff.

Thanks to those of you that responded,

Laurie

Laurieny,

I detailed the steps I did to change to a Zalman ZM-F2.  I have not had a single crash since making the fan change, no BIOS error, and best of all.... much much quieter (not silent - since I wanted to retain CFM).

Flip through the forum for my prior post... maybe it will help?

Good luck.

Hello Vega_1

I want to do the same thing. The Zalman will cool the CPU perfectly as tests in PcProfessional 9/2003 show.

I am more concerned about the total flow of air through the system and especially the air cooling the hard disk(s).

The 57dBA Datech DS9238HB fan http://www.datech.com.tw in my Dimension 8300 3.2GHz transports the incredible amout of 134cfm (cubic feet per minute) which should be somewhat less than 200m3/hour (please correct if my conversion is wrong).

The 23dBA Papst 3412NGL transports only 61m3/h. This is only 1/3 of the Datech.

Although this should be fine to move the warm air from the Zalman out of the case,  is it good enough to ensure the airflow from the front of the case that passes by the hard disks?

So I called Maxtor. They do not provide a utility that would read out the S.M.A.R.T. data from the hard disk.

But  they recommended to visit http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html where I found a tiny freeware "Drive Temperature" which displays the temperature of your drives in the system tray (should not exceed 55C).

I am eager to hear about your modification and if your disks keep cool.

NullProblemo (Switzerland)

Hello Laurie

Keep to the cooling concept that "Vega_1" suggests with one CPU fan and one exausting fan.

One single low noise (low throughput) fan wont do the job to keep the system cool.