Dell G5 Cooling issues

Yes, the stock coolers that come with it are garbage and false advertising. You won't get this big CPU heatsink pictured on the product page. That's what I was misled to believe I was getting when I ordered, but no. Only K processors get that. Non-K CPUs like yours (and my 10900F) get a tiny heatsink with a loud and inefficient 80mm fan. The case exhaust fan is also 80mm and very loud. Who puts something like that on a machine with a 10900 and RTX3070??? My idle temps were close to 70 degrees with the stock cooler. As soon as I started a game, it would instantly jump to 90+. And the noise those stock coolers made was horrible (think hair dryer).

I had to spend about $130 more to buy proper coolers for a machine that already cost over $2000+. I got the same Noctuas you linked in your post. Plus another Noctua that I installed at the front of the case to bring cold air in. (pic of my setup here). Idle is now around 35-39, full load in CPU stress tests never goes above 80 degrees (and it very rarely even hits 80) and in games it's about 60-65 after a long time playing. The computer runs great now and is very quiet.

I wish Dell would care about their customers and their own reputation enough to just add proper coolers out of the box rather than forcing customers to spend more so that they can fully enjoy the already expensive product they've paid for. I would have gladly paid $50 more for the machine to get proper coolers.

Thanks for the reply.  As stated I was looking at getting the following cpu cooler.  Is it good enough, how hard is it to replace the stock cooler with this?

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B00TBHYYFK/?coliid=IMKK87T3Y6942&colid=2QHM57X2UA07M&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

@peter1_979 that's the same cooler I have and I love it (pic of my final setup here. I went a bit crazy on the Noctuas, lol). With a total of 5 fans, my idle temps are now under 25 degrees, browsing and light use is around 27-28 degrees, gaming is around 60-65 and full stress-test on all cores rarely goes above 75. I can finally use all the CPU power that I paid for! (too bad Dell is forcing us to pay more money to buy what they should have included in the first place!)

The cooler is really easy to install:

1. Buy four 3mm x 16mm machine screws from the hardware store (like these), as well as 3mm washers.
2. Remove the default Dell cooler. It has 4 screws. Make sure to unplug the wire first.
3. Clean up the thermal paste on the CPU with a tissue (use a bit of isopropyl alcohol if needed).
4. Use the 4 screws and washers you bought to install the Intel LGA bracket and spacers that come with the Noctua to the holes in the motherboard (same place as the old cooler). The Noctua guide will tell you which bracket to use. No need to remove the motherboard, and no need to use the backplate included with the Noctua. Tighten it well, but don't force it.
5. Put a small bit of thermal paste (~5mm ball) right in the center of the CPU. No need to spread it.
6. Remove the plastic from the bottom of the Noctua heatsink and install it on the bracket. Tighten the two included screws. Again, don't force them.
7. Attach the fan (or fans if you got two) to the heatsink as described in the Noctua instructions and plug it in.
8. Start your computer and enjoy low noise and lower temps.

Thanks for the detailed response.

I don't have my hands on the actual desktop yet (should be arriving tomorrow).

I all ready have the Noctua fan and my plan is to replace the exhaust fan (move the exhaust fan to the front of the machine to improve front to back airflow).  I was going to leave at that just to see how it was running.

If this kept the CPU temp from going above 85 under heavy load I was going to leave it at that, my understanding is that anything under 85 is acceptable in terms of performance as CPU';s don't start throttling until after this point (please correct me if I'm wrong).

If I did go with the cpu cooler are the 2 additional fans attached to it necessary?

What type of thermal paste should I use or are they all pretty much the same.

Again thanks for your quick and detailed response.

I think you'll be totally fine with just one fan on the CPU cooler, plus an exhaust Noctua and the Dell set as intake. I went crazy with 5 fans because I'm obsessed with numbers and seeing those temps as low as possible and the CPU GHz boosting as high as possible, lol. When my case goes out of warranty, I totally intend to drill into it to install watercooling. I just love tinkering and modding, and this Dell machine definitely offers a good challenge for that!

I think the Intel thermal throttle temp limit is 90 or 95, not 85, so you should be good. The Noctua CPU cooler you got will easily keep it under that limit most (or all) the time. I recommend installing an app called ThrottleStop, which has a "Limits" window that shows you the various throttling reasons as they happen: thermal, power, current, TVB, etc. The ideal goal is for that window to stay blank as long as possible (no throttling). The app is also able to tweak/remove the limits on power and turbo boost so that you can boost forever if the CPU is cool enough. 

Here is my 10900 keeping a constant 5.0GHz boost with occasional 5.2GHz, while staying at a comfortable 55 degrees in a single-thread stress test, with no throttling at all.

One last question regarding the installation instructions.  

I assume you put the washers between the board and and the spacers?

No, the washers would go at the top of the screws, to prevent the screw heads from passing through the holes in the cooler brackets. To be honest, the possibility of that is pretty small, as the bracket holes are not that big, but good to have washers there just in case. 

One more tip for when you replace the rear cooler with a Noctua and use the Dell cooler as intake: the Noctua splitter cable has one end with 3 pins and the other end with 4 pins. Make sure to plug the Noctua into the 4-pin end and the Dell cooler into the 3-pin. Otherwise, the Noctua might spin much slower than it should, and not be very efficient. 

So I my G5 arrived during the week.  

I replaced the exhaust fan with the Noctura, and moved the stock fan to the front so now I have good airflow from front to back.

Under moderate gaming (Outriders demo) with fan profile set to performance I'm getting between 55 to 65 degrees.  I then used the Heaven benchmark tool to try and simulate a larger gaming load.  I ran it for about 30 mins and CPU temp stayed around mid to high 70s (never went above 80).  I also had that toll open the whole time and didn't see ay evidence of any throttling.

At the moment I'm pretty happy with these temps, the stock fan I moved to the front is fairly loud though when set to max speed however I'm okay with this considering how much I got the system (€1444 excluding Noctura fan).  So far now I think I will hold off replacing the CPU cooler, I will do it further down the road.

Just some few final question regarding the Noctura CPU cooler.

-Can the Dell CPU fan be attached to the side of the cooler?

-Should I just buy another Noctura fan to attach to the CPU cooler instead of using the dell fan, if so which one should I get?

-How easy is it to attach to the CPU cooler, does it matter what side it goes on, (I'm thinking it should be facing the front case fan?

Again thanks for all your advice on this topic.   

@peter1_979 , I'm glad to hear you are getting good temps already! 

The Noctua CPU cooler will already include one fan (same type of 92mm fan as the one you put on the back of the case). Since your temps are already good, you probably won't need a second fan on the CPU cooler.

But in case you do want a second fan on the CPU, you'll have to buy a 92mm. The Dell 80mm is too small, so the elastic steel clips used to attach it to the radiator will be too loose and won't hold it tight enough. The clips are made to stretch on the 92mm fan and provide tension to hold it in place.

Regarding which side the CPU cooler fan should go on: if you only use one fan, it's recommended to add it to the front of the cooler, so it pushes air into the cooler fins, towards the case exhaust fan. However, some folks have had better results with adding the fan to the fins at the back to pull air through the cooler and push it to the exhaust. I added mine to the front and was happy. But then I added a second one to create a push-pull configuration.

Hey last update on this.  So temps are still looking good with the current fan config (cpu temp staying in 60's occasionally mid to low 70's while moderate gaming, Outriders, Jedi Fallen Order).

Throttlestop is looking good in terms of limits (mostly blank).  However occasionally EDP other (in orange) will appear under ring.  If I clear it goes away and only comes back the odd time.  As my temps seem okay, I'm not experiencing any noticeable performance issues and no other messages appear in the limits window I don't think this is of any concern.  However as your more familiar with this tool than me I thought I'd get your opinion.

From what I've read online I think its not a reason for concern but I'm open to correction.

Thanks again.   

So glad to hear you're getting good temps and no throttling. Don't mind EDP/Current throttling if it comes in every now and then. That's the physical current limitation from your motherboard VRM to your CPU. Some motherboards allow you to up that in the BIOS. Dell doesn't. But hitting that limit in a stress test is actually good news. It means nothing else limited your CPU from drawing as much current as it can. No power limit, no thermal limit. So you're good to go

Enjoy it! I love my G5 now that I've fixed the cooling and removed all the limits. 

Yesterday I also played with undervolting the GPU a bit to keep its temps and power usage down. I got it to draw 950mV at 2000MHz and is stable at that. GPU temps in games now don't pass 70-75 and GPU power stays under 200W, at the same framerates as before. So, no loss in performance, but a cooler GPU and less fan noise.

So 1 final update.

I was playing Fallen Order last night for a while and saw the following in ThrottleStop.  I'm guessing this means my system is drawing max power in order to keep it cool.  Looks like I will need to upgrade the CPU cooler at some point after all.  Now it only happens on more intensive games (when I switched back to Outriders it went away) and I I don't notice any obvious performance drop (I wasn't running a FPS counter though).

Do I risk damaging my system if I keep playing with these indicators up?

Hm, so what's happening there is not heat related. Your CPU is still being power limited. It's only allowed to turbo for a limited time, then it's being brought back down to 65W. 

Here are my ThrottleStop settings. The first step is to go into the FIVR window and check the box that says "Disable and lock turbo limits". That blocks the bios and windows from trying to revert to default limits again.

Then reboot and copy the other settings you see in my main window, TPL window (see how I put the power to 250W in all boxes and maxed out the time slider) and C10 window. (Ignore my voltage settings in the FIVR window. You can't do that unless you edit your BIOS code).

Then set ThrottleStop to start with Windows (in the Options button) and see if it still power throttles you. 

Keep in mind that doing this will most likely push your temps higher than before over time, so you might look into buying that CPU cooler afterall

Okay I might leave it as is don't want to be driving temp any higher, I'll replicate it with an FPS counter turned on so I can see if there is a performance hit.

Gameplay feels okay so I can live with it until I get the CPU cooler upgrade but am I risking any damage to the system if I run like this for extended periods of time?

No damage at all. That window is just showing you the normal limitations that the BIOS and the CPU itself put in place to reduce power, current, temps, etc. Those come from factory like that and are normal.