XPS 8930, alternative cooling solution, 8700k delid

did you take any pictures?

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@jlg11d wrote:

I was bored and delidded my 8700k. got an oc (with throttlestop) to 5.0ghz and it hit 72c tops running cinebench r15 (ambient was around 24c) with a 212 evo for cooling. Looking through some of these posts, this seems way more practical than what looks like the hours and hours of modification it took some of the people in these posts. It cost me $12 for the tool and $13 for the paste and maybe an hour and a half (most of it spent cleaning the pcb on the cpu). Just do it, it's easy and you're likely out of warranty by this point anyway.  

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How did you manage to get the 212 EVO in the stock Dell Case?

Or did you case swap which enabled you to have more cooling options.......like delidding + air cooler?

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@jlg11d wrote:

I was bored and delidded my 8700k. got an oc (with throttlestop) to 5.0ghz and it hit 72c tops running cinebench r15 (ambient was around 24c) with a 212 evo for cooling. Looking through some of these posts, this seems way more practical than what looks like the hours and hours of modification it took some of the people in these posts. It cost me $12 for the tool and $13 for the paste and maybe an hour and a half (most of it spent cleaning the pcb on the cpu). Just do it, it's easy and you're likely out of warranty by this point anyway.  

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What's delid? Got pictures?

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@546insp wrote:

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What's delid? Got pictures?

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. . . not for the faint of heart

what is delidding?

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@546insp wrote:

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What's delid? Got pictures?

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. . . not for the faint of heart

what is delidding?

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I'm wondering why Dell lidded it in the first place and if it really is better than all the time and money spent on radiators, water cooling, bigger cases etc others have done. I'm also wondering why you guys just don't buy a PC without the overheating problem to start with. Luckily I just added a large front fan and paid special attention to getting all the intake air from the outside which completely cured my heating problem. I admit the most I do is run my photo editing program, YouTube, and a full virus scan at the same time but the temps coming out the top are 10* F hotter than the ambient room temp MAX and there is no more jet engine sounds.

no, i'll take some when the cooler comes in. it should look pretty stock, though. 

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@546insp wrote:

 I'm also wondering why you guys just don't buy a PC without the overheating problem to start with. 

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You should hop over the the Alienware Desktops Discussions and read those posts screaming [profanity] about the fan noise and heat problems. Those are mostly gamer-types that thought they were buying a top-of-the-line gaming machine. Unfortunately, the Aurora R8 comes in the same case as the XPS 8930, with the stupid swing-out PSU contraption. They are not at all happy over there. Alienware/Dell are really driving away future customers . . . forever. That is not an optimum business model.

i just used the 212 for reference. I plan on putting a noctua L12-S in there, which should cool about the same and still fit under the psu. 

Delidding goes back to 2009 mac pro XEONS.

I means un soldering the metal Lid covering the cpu exposing glass.

That also means you must be very carefull applying a cooling solution or the cpu will crack.  The other issue is that the cpu will literally burn up if powered with no heatsink.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0VuRG7MN4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoLkniC_JiE

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@546insp wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@546insp wrote:

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What's delid? Got pictures?

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. . . not for the faint of heart

what is delidding?

---

I'm wondering why Dell lidded it in the first place and if it really is better than all the time and money spent on radiators, water cooling, bigger cases etc others have done. I'm also wondering why you guys just don't buy a PC without the overheating problem to start with. Luckily I just added a large front fan and paid special attention to getting all the intake air from the outside which completely cured my heating problem. I admit the most I do is run my photo editing program, YouTube, and a full virus scan at the same time but the temps coming out the top are 10* F hotter than the ambient room temp MAX and there is no more jet engine sounds.

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ok, figured out the quote function. sorry anyone for the possible confusion in my earlier responses.

yeah, i did absolutely no research on this thing. i found it one day on craiglist for 900 bucks, and an 8700k and 1080 for 900 is too good to pass up. after the delidding and a new cooler/maybe some fans, i figure im still in this thing for under 1k. not bad, imo. 

delidding is when you remove the IHS (the metal plate with the logo and stuff printed on) and replace the TIM (thermal interface material) with something more efficient. in this pic you can see that I used liquid metal. some chips are soldered to the IHS (any AMD chip or old intel chips). those are still easy, just more work intensive - this one just has paste. you have the option to reseal the IHS, which I didn't do, or not reseal. resealing leaves a gap, negating any potential heat transfer efficiency. just a side note, i wouldn't do this with the new 9900k, for example, because that one is soldered on and the improvement would be minimal at best. 

8700k delid with lm

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@jlg11d wrote:

I was bored and delidded my 8700k. got an oc (with throttlestop) to 5.0ghz and it hit 72c tops running cinebench r15 (ambient was around 24c) with a 212 evo for cooling. Looking through some of these posts, this seems way more practical than what looks like the hours and hours of modification it took some of the people in these posts. It cost me $12 for the tool and $13 for the paste and maybe an hour and a half (most of it spent cleaning the pcb on the cpu). Just do it, it's easy and you're likely out of warranty by this point anyway.  

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@jlg11d wrote:

i just used the 212 for reference. I plan on putting a noctua L12-S in there, which should cool about the same and still fit under the psu. 

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I am curious to see how this turns out.

The Noctua NH-L12S cooler is a new cooler which uses their slim 120mm fans.  So it's one of the few 120mm fan based coolers with a low profile which should fit under the PSU.  I wonder if its footprint would clear the RAM boards and how much of a backplate mod you would have to do to install it.

Its a $50 cooler which is close to the cost of the Corsair H60 (2018) cooler at $60.   With the H60 cooler you can get temps in the mid 50's to mid 60's depending on the configuration (non-K).

Installing the liquid cooler requires a few case mods that takes about 5 minutes once you seal off the case or remove the guts of the machine and the simple installation of the cooler on the motherboard using 4 thumbscrews without any motherboard modifications.    

Yes, It took hours to figure how to do install liquid cooling and a case swap, but once you figure it out it should only take a couple of hours for anyone to do either. 

So wondering how that would be more difficult and less practical than delidding the CPU and removing the motherboard to do a backplate mod to install the cooler.  Then adding some case fans to get more airflow into the case.  You will spend some time figuring this out so I commend your efforts.  There is some info on the fan installs so that should save you some time.

Let us know how it turns out and if you still get the 72 degree temps in this awful case.   You can always do a case swap if  airflow isn't enough to the Noctua cooler.  That might be the way to go with a -K CPU and OC.  If you use the XPS 8930 case, while adding more fans, you may also look at fixing the speed of the fan on the cooler for lower temps.  Another discovery that was made along the way as the fan curves on the motherboard are very conservative.

Keep us posted.

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@546insp wrote:

 I'm also wondering why you guys just don't buy a PC without the overheating problem to start with. 

---

You should hop over the the Alienware Desktops Discussions and read those posts screaming [profanity] about the fan noise and heat problems. Those are mostly gamer-types that thought they were buying a top-of-the-line gaming machine. Unfortunately, the Aurora R8 comes in the same case as the XPS 8930, with the stupid swing-out PSU contraption. They are not at all happy over there. Alienware/Dell are really driving away future customers . . . forever. That is not an optimum business model.

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Yeah, that psu placement is really one of the dumbest things I've seen in awhile. 

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@jlg11d wrote:

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Yeah, that psu placement is really one of the dumbest things I've seen in awhile. 

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I am planning to remove that PSU swing-out gate and throw it in the trash. I'll toss the PSU on the top of the case, until I find a better place for it. That really opens up the cooling options. You could even use the 212 EVO cooler. That thing must come with a giant backing plate for the mobo.

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@HanoverB wrote:

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@jlg11d wrote:

I was bored and delidded my 8700k. got an oc (with throttlestop) to 5.0ghz and it hit 72c tops running cinebench r15 (ambient was around 24c) with a 212 evo for cooling. Looking through some of these posts, this seems way more practical than what looks like the hours and hours of modification it took some of the people in these posts. It cost me $12 for the tool and $13 for the paste and maybe an hour and a half (most of it spent cleaning the pcb on the cpu). Just do it, it's easy and you're likely out of warranty by this point anyway.  

---

@jlg11d wrote:

i just used the 212 for reference. I plan on putting a noctua L12-S in there, which should cool about the same and still fit under the psu. 

---

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I am curious to see how this turns out.

The Noctua NH-L12S cooler is a new cooler which uses their slim 120mm fans.  So it's one of the few 120mm fan based coolers with a low profile which should fit under the PSU.  I wonder if its footprint would clear the RAM boards and how much of a backplate mod you would have to do to install it.

Its a $50 cooler which is close to the cost of the Corsair H60 (2018) cooler at $60.   With the H60 cooler you can get temps in the mid 50's to mid 60's depending on the configuration (non-K).

Installing the liquid cooler requires a few case mods that takes about 5 minutes once you seal off the case or remove the guts of the machine and the simple installation of the cooler on the motherboard using 4 thumbscrews without any motherboard modifications.    

Yes, It took hours to figure how to do install liquid cooling and a case swap, but once you figure it out it should only take a couple of hours for anyone to do either. 

So wondering how that would be more difficult and less practical than delidding the CPU and removing the motherboard to do a backplate mod to install the cooler.  Then adding some case fans to get more airflow into the case.  You will spend some time figuring this out so I commend your efforts.  There is some info on the fan installs so that should save you some time.

Let us know how it turns out and if you still get the 72 degree temps in this awful case.   You can always do a case swap if  airflow isn't enough to the Noctua cooler.  That might be the way to go with a -K CPU and OC.  If you use the XPS 8930 case, while adding more fans, you may also look at fixing the speed of the fan on the cooler for lower temps.  Another discovery that was made along the way as the fan curves on the motherboard are very conservative.

Keep us posted.

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i'll definitely keep you posted. all i meant by this thread was that for about 45 minutes of your time, you can get around a ~20c drop in temps with a simple delid. it's a very easy process, as long as you take your time. the 212 drops it another ~5-10c beyond the stock cooler (the one with the 3 heatpipes), btw. i'm not interested in the h60 because without putting more case fans, the vrm would get absolutely no air (and i just dont like the idea of fittings and water and my computer all hanging out). 

here are some pics of what i did to the plate to get the 212 to fit.