Dell Precision 3630 liquid cooling with Corsair H60

Greetings from the Whitsundays, Australia.

My rig is a Dell Precision 3630 running a Xeon E-2174g stock voltage of 1.424v @ 4.7ghz or 4.3 on all cores at a boost TDP of 100w and steady at 71w, Quadro P2000, 500gb SSD and 2tb hard drive. Fantastic machine, smashes out the work, I'm a building designer using Autodesk Revit, it has to work hard all day every day without breaking or crashing, and it does just that

However it was regularly loud and hitting 100c degrees, now I know from past experience that you can run workstations and servers at 100c degrees for years and nothing bad happens (sorry cooling enthusiasts I know that's not what you want to hear haha). However, I wanted it to be cooler and quieter and started looking for some options. 

This is in no way a negative review of Dell Workstations, they perform and work hard for years, that's why I buy them.

For those not familiar with the Precision 3630, it uses a similar case design to the XPS 8930 I.E. The power supply is hinged and sits over the motherboard, and therefore cpu cooling options are limited to low profile solutions only.

Dell does use high quality AVC industrial fans with quite remarkable pressure and flow rates, but the cpu heatsink (intel copper core 80w) was not able to keep the heat or noise down or prevent thermal throttling. I thought I could do better so if you're interested please follow my cooling journey below.

Research:

There is very limited data available for aftermarket cooling on workstations - which is why I made this post - however given the similar case design between the precision and the xps, I recognized that it was close enough to use cooling attempts by other users on the xps, on my precision.

Attempt at air cooling:

I didn't want to remove the motherboard from the case, to me it was too risky, I need the computer running all the time, cant afford to stuff anything up and have downtime. This means you're limited to air coolers that screw in from the top, into the existing dell installed backplate (using M3 8mm screws).

I tried the Arctic Freezer 11lp, and it instantly got smoked despite it being rated for 100w, It's very quiet but the cooling capacity was not adequate for this processor. After various thermal paste applications I realized that the stock cooler was better

This may not have been the cooler's fault, there is very little room between the PSU and the cpu, only 50-60mm. Time to relocate the heat exchanger, which means liquid cooling.

Liquid cooling with Corsair H60.

Firstly special thanks to @HanoverB, he showed the way with his detailed post on installing a H60 on his XPS 8930, never in a million years would I have attempted this without his previous work, experience and subsequent sharing of knowledge https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-GPU-and-CPU-Liquid-Cooler-PSU-Case-Swap-Upgrade/td-p/6137280

And @rwgordon for showing that the excellent 25mm thick Corsair fan that comes with the H60 can fit - with some slight cutting or in my case bending of the metal case.

Note that Precision 3630 has a lower height than the XPS, but I believe the same width and depth.

Before I attempted the install I first took the time to research, had a think about my proficiency with working with computers or delicate jobs in general, weighed up the pros and cons, planned what I was going to do and accepted the risks of something going wrong, you should do the same.

Test first to make sure it's worth it: Ambient temperature here is always 24-25 deg C.

Stock

very loud (almost hair dryer) Intel xtu stress test 90-95 deg c and thermal throttling, handbrake 100 deg c and thermal throttling.

H60 

quiet AF, fan has a nice quiet thrum, pump inaudible, xtu 75-80 deg c, handbrake boosting at 100w 85 deg, steady at 80 deg and 71w. Revision A - actually the pump is audible (just) when the case is open, the Quadro P2000 has a similar pitch which is why I didn't notice it at the time, with the case closed I can't hear it so it doesn't matter to me, noise pitch is subjective of course.

Looks like it's worth it, do it! Better have a beer first....

Now brave, I removed the stock cooler and cleaned the cpu face, then rather than cut the PSU bracket, the H60 pump fitted through the available void as shown below.

I have to apologise for the next and trickiest bit, I was absorbed in getting it done and could definitely have taken more photos. I removed and relocated the SSD to the 2nd drive bay at the bottom of the case, removed the drive enclosure, bent outwards a couple of metal bits that were in the way..

And very gently and slowly inserted the radiator and fan into the available space, it doesn't look like it will fit, but it does, I disconnected the USB header just to give my hands a bit more room while placing the rad and fan, then reconnected it. All other cables remained in place, be gentle, go slow, move cables around individually with your fingers rather than pushing them out of the way with the rad/fan. Slow/gentle, take your time, don't do anything irreversible and you will get it done, once in position, touch surrounding cables, make sure they are not under pressure or tension, if so, do it again from the start and pay more attention to your cables!

bend the metal bits back, tbh I was going to secure the rad with screws or maybe zipties, but it's a tight space, surrounded and held in place by the case enclosure and various cables, she's not going anywhere, check that cables are arranged not to interfere with fan, fan plugged into cpu header, pump plugged into spare sata power.

Next, rotate the pump over the cpu, find the orientation that puts the least amount of pressure on the pipe fittings, for the 3630 I found that 90 deg clockwise was the best, so that the pipes have room to move outwards and around the cpu as the PSU hinge is closed. As HanoverB observed the Corsair standoff pins screw directly into the existing dell backplate, no worries at all or need to remove the motherboard, I did finger tight only for all screws.

Final install of pump, tidy up cables, close case slowly make sure nothings being crimped or pulled on, touch pipes and gently move to ensure they're not under tension.

All back together, start to finish was 1.5 hours, considering I'll use this for the next 4-5 years I reckon that's pretty good.

I have to admit I'm very happy with the result, the Xeon 2174g likes to run hard and hot and now it can 24/7 without annoying me haha, plus we took 20 deg c off the temp.

Due to the research I'd done and the 2 very kind members' detailed posts that I mention above, I was 90% sure it would work, I would have aborted if I'd hit a snag which req'd more case modification or making irreversible changes, always good to keep that in mind.

This is not a review of the H60, but it feels like bloody good quality to me! Hope all that makes sense, feel free to get in touch if I've missed anything obvious.

Being that this is the internet there may be some who have strong views on cable management or thermal paste application techniques or whatever, that's very exiting for you but do it in your own rig maaaate!

Revision A 15.11.19

Due to the Precision 3630 motherboard not having a spare 4 pin (PWM) header, the initial wiring setup I had means that if the pump dies the motherboard will not detect the failure. Which means that in the event of pump failure and cpu overheat, the cpu will throttle itself then shutdown if throttling does not control the overheat - I understand that this is a robust and reliable protection system, but I have now installed a fan controller so that if the pump does die then the motherboard will detect it, just because I wanted the extra layer of protection. 

The system fan and rad fan now run through a thermaltake commander FP (sata powered PWM fan controller) with the:

- controller PWM input cable plugged into the system fan header

- the rad fan plugged into the 1 available controller PWM reporting port, and

- the system fan plugged into 1 of the 9 available controller non-reporting ports.

- pump tach plugged into the cpu fan header (as Corsair recommends).

Now I know I attempted to make fun of people who obsess about thermal paste application techniques, but while I was in the case installing the fan controller, I may have checked and re-applied the thermal paste (the first application was fine).... you know just to be sure hahaha, so perhaps the joke is on me.

I'm now completely satisfied with the result, the h60 seems to want to be in that space as it fits so well. I chose the h60 only because there's a million of them out there already in use with very well reviewed low failure rates. For people looking for alternatives to the H60, there are AIO's that I think would fit without having to bend a metal bit or 2 of the internal chassis out of the way, the thermaltake water 3.0 120 for example has dimensions of 151*120*27, vs the H60 dims of 157*120*27, best to check for yourself though as I'm a building designer not a computer tech!

I love the performance, reliability, price and commercial look of the 3630 and will keep buying and recommending them. Would I like to see dell offer AIO's as a factory option in their 3000 series workstations as they do in some Alienware systems? Absolutely yes please.

cheers

Simon