XPS 8940, Better 3rd party cooler

@Jon-62 what kind of temp difference have you seen using the dual 80mm fans compared to the single 80mm fan? 

Mine didn’t come with the factory GPU support bracket. But I found that a pop bottle screw top worked well in taking load off the card slot where my 2060 is installed. Trim some height off it to fit, a small square of double-sided foam tape on the top, then place it top down on the power supply wherever the rim hits a good place on the GPU case. Frees the space taken by the bulky stock support where folks are wanting to put fans, and doesn’t interfere with GPU airflow.  Low-rent solution, but it’s a closed case so who cares.

Re. mesh, use caution. Mesh can play havoc with airflow.

@lb11 - nice solution !  "Necessity is the mother of invention"

-- Steve

@studmonkey77  I looked at fitting a 92 mm fan but the air flow through 2 x 80 mm fans is greater, so chose that option.  Also, using 2 x 80 mm fans spreads the air across a wider area including some flow above the GPU.

@SteveK318 I put my cover back on last night because my GF came over with her puppy who likes to destroy cables, and the GPU temps shot up 10-12 degrees in a matter of minutes. I definitely need to look into how to keep that cover off while also protecting the insides from dust, overexcited pets, etc.

Meanwhile, I put a 360mm by 120mm magnetic filter all over the front sheet metal (removed the plastic cover completely). Looks a bit getto, but should be much easier to clean and I'm looking into how to build a frame around it to make it look a bit better.

(pic might take a while to load, pending moderator approval)

@bertro514  Wow, I'm idling here with cores between 29°C and 32°C plus GPU at 32°C (hot spot 43°C).  The magnetic filter on the front doesn't look too bad.  

@Jon-62 My idle is around the same as yours: CPU 30-32 and GPU ~32-33 (ambient is around 26 in my house right now). The higher temps I was mentioning before are when the GPU is under medium-high load running a certain application.

@bertro514   Your ambient is a bit higher than mine.  It’s probably 20°C - 21°C here this evening.

@bertro514 - looks good !  Yeah, keep the puppy away !! My grandson has a new kitten and he's constantly 'shoeing' it away from the cables !

Wow, that's a huge temp increase putting the cover back on. Hopefully we'll come up with a solution to allow more air in the side. And I like the full filter in the front... I'm sure we'll come up with a new front cover !!

Pic was there for me now.

-- Steve

The GPU fans suck air into the GPU heatsink. Depending on the model, some exhaust it back into the case, others blow it out of the back of the computer from the second PCI slot hole. 

The problem in our XPS and G5 5000s is that those GPU fans are so close to the PSU that they suck in warm air from the power supply, so not very efficient.

Are the GPUs with fans on the bottom (like the Geforces) downward-blowing?  Or pushing air up into the assembly?

@SteveK318  If you get a chance, go to the dual 80mm fan below the 120mm. My temps dropped 4-5 degrees on the gpu. Cant use the gpu bracket but can order a different one to fit. 

@studmonkey77 - Thanks - Maybe at some point I might give that a try... My GPU temps stay pretty constant thanks to the mining software ! The only thing that varies is the GPU fan speed, but it's not even that bad. 

-- Steve

@bertro514Do you have any ThrottleStop (or other) settings recommendations for a i5-11400 with the 360 W PSU? My XPS 8940 came with a GTX1660S. I have 3 DDR4 sticks installed (oddly showing as DUAL in HWINFO even though there are 3), 1 M.2, 1 SATA SSD, 1 0.2A 120mm intake fan, 1 0.1A 92mm exhaust fan, and the Vetroo V5. I know I shouldn't go anywhere near the power settings you used, as I'm sure you have a 500 W PSU. Any thoughts would be great! ThrottleStop is very confusing to me so far. I have already undervolted my GPU to 975mV, although I didn't notice any temperature drop sadly--maybe your GPU is too different for it to work the same with mine.