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ghooper

25 Posts

45727

January 14th, 2018 13:00

XPS 8930, How I Fixed the Noise Issues

I recently bought a Dell XPS 8930 with an i7-8700 (not 8700k). When the CPU is under heavy load (i.e. around 100%) the case fan and the CPU cooler fan really ramp up and are very loud. When under heavy load the XPS 8930 is the noisiest computer that I have ever used. When you are not stressing the CPU though, it is pretty quiet.

I have found two solutions to this issue:

(1) Replace the CPU cooler with a more effective one - not easy but very effective

To me it seemed that the stock CPU cooler - which is quite a small unit - was struggling to keep the CPU cool when the CPU was running at 100%. The CPU temperature when at 100% for a period of time was typically in the high 80's Centigrade and peaked in the low 90's. The issue with the Dell case design is that there is only around 70mm of space from the top of the CPU to the side of the PSU. The stock CPU cooler and fan is 50mm high and has an 80mm wide fan. There are not many CPU coolers that will fit within 70mm and still have space for airflow. For example, one of the best "low profile" CPU coolers is the Raijintek Pallas. However, this is 68mm high. I wasn't confident that the fan would work very well if it had a flat surface just a couple of millimeters above it. In the end the fan that I found that did fit and was effective was a Scythe Big Shuriken 2. 

This unit is 58mm high including the fan - so still has 12mm/ half an inch of clearance. This CPU cooler is much larger with a 120mm fan vs the 80mm fan of the stock cooler. (So the surface area of the fan and heat sink cooler is more than twice that of the stock cooler.) The design also ensures that the heatsink clears the capacitors/resisters and memory banks that are close to the CPU. This CPU cooler doesn't seem to have to work very hard to keep the CPU cool even when the CPU usage is 100%. Under load my maximum CPU temperatures are about 5C lower than they were before and the fan noise from the Big Shuriken 2 is very low. Keeping the CPU cooler seems to mean that the case fan doesn't have to ramp up as much so that is much quieter too. I notice that the Big Shuriken also seems to have extra cooling capacity. Occasionally when the temperatures are high you will hear the CPU cooler fan ramping up a bit (though still much quieter than the stock cooler) and in a few seconds the temperature will fall from being in the 80's to being in the 60's and the CPU fan will slow down again. The stock cooler on the other hand simply seems to have to work at 100% all the time when the CPU is under load.

Changing the CPU Cooler isn't for the faint hearted.

Socket Clamp Backplate Issue - The CPU is held in place with a socket clamp - normally this screws into a backplate on the underside of the motherboard like this - it is the plate with three screws in it. 

Socket Clamp back plate

All CPU coolers are held in place with another back plate that also fits under the motherboard and usually goes over the top of the CPU socket backplate. This is what the screws from the CPU cooler fit into. Motherboards have holes for these screws to pass through.  

Unfortunately Dell use a single back plate that has screw holes for both the CPU socket clamp and the heat sink. This is unusual and stops you using the back plate that comes with the CPU cooler.

You can replace the Dell combined backplate with a normal CPU socket clamp bacck plate and then use the CPU cooler backplate. This is what I did - I bought a brocken 1151 motherboard for £15 and took the (normal) socket clamp back plate off of that. (I could not find anywhere that sold just a socket clamp back plate - or even a whole socket clamp assembly.

Alternatively you could try resusing the Dell combined backlate instead of the CPU cooler backplate. However, I found that the existing screw holes in the dell back plate where the stock CPU cooler screws into were too small. You can get around this by knocking the screw holes out of the backplate with a hole punch but i didnt want to do that.

So for me step 1 was to get a socket 1151 CPU clamp backplate.

Then you can unplug everything from the motherboard. Before you do this take a few pictures of all the cables in place just in case you cnanot remember where they go. 

Remove the screws holding in the motherboard (7 of these I think) and remove the motherboard from the case. This is a pain because the case has absolutely no spare space around the motherboard and you have to get it to an angle to get it out so that the USB sockets etc dont catch on the case. I really wish that Dell had made the case just a quarter of an inch bigger all the way around the motherboard.

Take off the existing CPU cooler and the socket clamp so that you can remove Dell's combined back plate. Put the CPU somewhere safe. Put the socket clamp back on using your new socket backplate. Put the CPU back in. Then fit the new CPU cooler - making sure that you clean off the old thermal paste and use some new good quality paste. It really helps if you have a spare set of hands while attaching the CPU cooler - it would be really hard to hold the cooler in place on the CPU and screw it into place from the underside of the motherboard otherwise.

Then put it all back together and you should have a nice and quiet PC.

I did have one moment of panic after I put it all back together - as the system would not power up! I could not see any cables that were not back in the right place. Going back tothe photos showed me that I had missed a small cable that appeared to be for the power button. It had been pushed out of the way when trying to get the motherboard back in the case and was small enough to be hidden by other cables. 

(2) Reduce the Maximum CPU frequency - easy to do and effective

More details on this option are here:

Reducing CPU Maximum Frequency

Personally I found that a setting of 3900MHz made the XPS 8930 pretty quiet while having no significant impact on performance. In practice this isn't very surprising. In theory the i7-8700 can go up to 4600MHz with Turbo Boost. However, with longer running tasks the maximum CPU frequency rarely goes above 4000MHz.

Some people have recommended reducing the CPU Maximum State (in power settings) instead. Do NOT do this. If you set this to even 99% you will lose about 25% of your maximum CPU performance. I tested ripping a 2 minute section of a blu-ray. With Max CPU State at 100% it took 60 seconds - with a setting of 99% it took 76 seconds. This big change in performance is because even a setting of 99% disables all turbo boosting of the CPU so the maximum CPU frequency falls from 4.6GHz to 3.2GHz. On the plus side though - if you are willing to take this significant hit in performance then your PC will be very quiet.

1 person also has this problem

AlienBlaster

20 Posts

February 27th, 2019 08:00

@Jacobong521 wrote:

Why my quote reply to AlienBlaster always gone without any reason????

to AB: i will give it a try after i getting my new fan :) by the way for xps 8930 case, exhaust should use high airflow fan or static pressure type? i think static pressure fan much suitable right consider to how congested is underneath of the top exhaust.

Yes it's congested but I don't think it's going to make a big difference. The new Noctua A12x25 fan is an all-rounder and excels in every way but it's overpriced at the moment. F12 is for static pressure but doesn't come with a 3-pin version. I would personally go with a S12A FLX as it has 16% more air flow than F12 which should make up for the lower sp. It also comes with two low-noise adapters which are especially handy for a Dell as the PWM function is pretty much useless. You may also consider S12B 3-pin as it's only slightly worse (sp is even better than S12A) but is 30% cheaper.

I look forward to your testing results. You could also simply test my step 1 by fixing the CPU fan speed while you are waiting. This is the most crucial part and is going to be useful for most people (gaming or non-gaming). I see you may have connected your fan hub to the motherboard header, so make sure you unplug it from MB while testing so it doesn't receive the PWM signal.

At a later stage when you test changing both front fans to exhaust, you may also want to test changing the top fan to intake. I know it's very unusual as hot air rises, but it may just work better for this case. Worth testing too.

HanoverB

798 Posts

February 27th, 2019 11:00

@AlienBlaster wrote:
@HanoverB wrote:
@AlienBlaster wrote:


2. Once your CPU temp problem is solved, you may consider using the front top fan as exhaust while leaving the front bottom fan as intake. It's usually not recommended this way in a normal case with better airflow, but for the XPS 8910/8920/8930 desktops, the hot air from GPU are the most difficult to dissipate due to the narrow compartment and PSU position. You will need all the help you can get to help GPU cool since CPU is no longer an issue.

 

AB

I think if you turn that upper intake fan to exhaust it might cause more heat buildup as the upper part of the case becomes even more negative pressure and starts pulling even more heat from the back of the case where the GPU is exhausting heat.  There would be no cool air coming in across the CPU.  When you add the upper front intake it at least balances the airflow as the cooler air is directed from front intake to upper exhaust.

With both the front intakes, the case pressure should change from a negative pressure case to a balanced/positive pressure case which is usually better.

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-GPU-and-CPU-Liquid-Cooler-PSU-Case-Swap-Upgrade/m-p/7238337/highlight/true#M22218

 

Hi HanoverB,

I understand that changing the upper front fan as exhaust will have a negative impact on CPU cooling. That's why I suggest this as a follow-up step once he can achieve a better temp on the CPU by following my suggestion of Step 1. What I was suggesting is to sacrifice a little of CPU cooling to improve the GPU temp. Hypothetically, he can lower the load CPU temp by around 5 to 10 degrees by fixing the fan speed, and then sacrifice around 2 to 5 degrees for the GPU for an overall improvement.

For gaming, GPU throttling usually has a bigger impact on the FPS. His CPU looks like an i7 8700 and is more than enough to drive his GPU (looks like a 1070 (Ti) or 1080 model) even if it doesn't achieve high turbo speeds at all time. His current temp of around 70c on Prime95 looks fine although the max reaches 88c which is not ideal. I believe that's because the PWM fan curve only responses at high temps, and fixing the fan speed will also solve that problem.

Now back to GPU. The Pascal line of GPU starts to thermal throttle at around 40c and that throttling will accelerate drastically at 70c. That means you want to keep it below 70c at all time and even then the lower the better. 

With a two-fan open-air GPU, the fans will blow towards the radiator fins and hot air spreads from four sides of the radiator. The motherboard side and case rear side are mostly blocked, and with the PSU in the Dell case, the path from the side panel side to the upper compartment is also blocked. The only side that's open is the front side of the GPU and hot air will accumulate there. 

By changing the upper front fan to exhaust, it will pull the accumulated hot air at the GPU front side more efficiently, and create a clock-wise circulation of in-cool-gpu-hot-out system. The concern here is that if the lower front fan is not low enough, it will blow these hot air back to the rear before it gets sucked up. I think it could work better if you can tilt the 120mm down a little (e.g. using the rubber clips coming with Noctua fans) to blow towards below the GPU, or maybe use a smaller fan (say 92mm or 80mm) that is totally below the GPU fan level.

One can also add a smaller fan (say 80mm) at the lower back as intake to pull cool air in more rapidly, and potentially change the front lower intake as exhaust as well. In your picture, all the arrows on your right side will become red instead of blue, and that could be the best solution.

It will not hurt to try if you have got the fans.

 

Got it.   

You can certainly also tweak the GPU temps by adjusting to a more aggressive fan curve on the GPU and not sacrifice any CPU temps if necessary.   

It’s typically only the CPU temps that have been the issue with i7 8700(k) on this machine and on the non-liquid cooled Alienware R7 reports on that forum. 

The GPU temps on the XPS 8930 machines and on the Alienware R6/R7 forums have not been an issue with the front lower fan providing adequate airflow to the GPU intake fans .  The GTX 1080 I have is meant to run up to its temperature target of 83C and stay there.   The onboard GPU fans seem capable of managing this as long as they have enough cool air.  At 1440K or 4K, or higher refresh rates 1080p gaming, the 1080/1080ti will hit that target.   By adjusting the GPU fan curves  to run at 75-80 percent you can certainly get better temps at the expense of fan noise.  Max temps on the GTX 1080 is 94C, where it will start to throttle.

I did try a 80mm Noctua fan in the lower area at different locations, it didn't make any difference as far as increasing cooler air intake and lowering GPU temps.  This was with the GPU liquid cooler in place.

If you find a way to manage the CPU temps in this case with the more aggressive fan speeds on the CPU cooler and still keep the noise manageable that would be nice.  The i7 8700 is a beast

546insp

732 Posts

February 27th, 2019 11:00

Anxious to so how THAT works out...…….

AlienBlaster

20 Posts

February 27th, 2019 12:00

@HanoverB wrote:
@AlienBlaster wrote:
@HanoverB wrote:
@AlienBlaster wrote:


2. Once your CPU temp problem is solved, you may consider using the front top fan as exhaust while leaving the front bottom fan as intake. It's usually not recommended this way in a normal case with better airflow, but for the XPS 8910/8920/8930 desktops, the hot air from GPU are the most difficult to dissipate due to the narrow compartment and PSU position. You will need all the help you can get to help GPU cool since CPU is no longer an issue.

 

AB

I think if you turn that upper intake fan to exhaust it might cause more heat buildup as the upper part of the case becomes even more negative pressure and starts pulling even more heat from the back of the case where the GPU is exhausting heat.  There would be no cool air coming in across the CPU.  When you add the upper front intake it at least balances the airflow as the cooler air is directed from front intake to upper exhaust.

With both the front intakes, the case pressure should change from a negative pressure case to a balanced/positive pressure case which is usually better.

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-GPU-and-CPU-Liquid-Cooler-PSU-Case-Swap-Upgrade/m-p/7238337/highlight/true#M22218

 

Hi HanoverB,

I understand that changing the upper front fan as exhaust will have a negative impact on CPU cooling. That's why I suggest this as a follow-up step once he can achieve a better temp on the CPU by following my suggestion of Step 1. What I was suggesting is to sacrifice a little of CPU cooling to improve the GPU temp. Hypothetically, he can lower the load CPU temp by around 5 to 10 degrees by fixing the fan speed, and then sacrifice around 2 to 5 degrees for the GPU for an overall improvement.

For gaming, GPU throttling usually has a bigger impact on the FPS. His CPU looks like an i7 8700 and is more than enough to drive his GPU (looks like a 1070 (Ti) or 1080 model) even if it doesn't achieve high turbo speeds at all time. His current temp of around 70c on Prime95 looks fine although the max reaches 88c which is not ideal. I believe that's because the PWM fan curve only responses at high temps, and fixing the fan speed will also solve that problem.

Now back to GPU. The Pascal line of GPU starts to thermal throttle at around 40c and that throttling will accelerate drastically at 70c. That means you want to keep it below 70c at all time and even then the lower the better. 

With a two-fan open-air GPU, the fans will blow towards the radiator fins and hot air spreads from four sides of the radiator. The motherboard side and case rear side are mostly blocked, and with the PSU in the Dell case, the path from the side panel side to the upper compartment is also blocked. The only side that's open is the front side of the GPU and hot air will accumulate there. 

By changing the upper front fan to exhaust, it will pull the accumulated hot air at the GPU front side more efficiently, and create a clock-wise circulation of in-cool-gpu-hot-out system. The concern here is that if the lower front fan is not low enough, it will blow these hot air back to the rear before it gets sucked up. I think it could work better if you can tilt the 120mm down a little (e.g. using the rubber clips coming with Noctua fans) to blow towards below the GPU, or maybe use a smaller fan (say 92mm or 80mm) that is totally below the GPU fan level.

One can also add a smaller fan (say 80mm) at the lower back as intake to pull cool air in more rapidly, and potentially change the front lower intake as exhaust as well. In your picture, all the arrows on your right side will become red instead of blue, and that could be the best solution.

It will not hurt to try if you have got the fans.

 

Got it.   

You can certainly also tweak the GPU temps by adjusting to a more aggressive fan curve on the GPU and not sacrifice any CPU temps if necessary.   

It’s typically only the CPU temps that have been the issue with i7 8700(k) on this machine and on the non-liquid cooled Alienware R7 reports on that forum. 

The GPU temps on the XPS 8930 machines and on the Alienware R6/R7 forums have not been an issue with the front lower fan providing adequate airflow to the GPU intake fans .  The GTX 1080 I have is meant to run up to its temperature target of 83C and stay there.   The onboard GPU fans seem capable of managing this as long as they have enough cool air.  At 1440K or 4K, or higher refresh rates 1080p gaming, the 1080/1080ti will hit that target.   By adjusting the GPU fan curves  to run at 75-80 percent you can certainly get better temps at the expense of fan noise.  Max temps on the GTX 1080 is 94C, where it will start to throttle.

I did try a 80mm Noctua fan in the lower area at different locations, it didn't make any difference as far as increasing cooler air intake and lowering GPU temps.  This was with the GPU liquid cooler in place.

If you find a way to manage the CPU temps in this case with the more aggressive fan speeds on the CPU cooler and still keep the noise manageable that would be nice.  The i7 8700 is a beast

I may have confused you with the term "throttling" I used previously. The thresholds such as 83c and 94c you mentioned are the traditional or "hard" throttling boundaries set by the manufacturers to protect the hardware from failure. I should have used the exact term GPU Boost 3.0 for Pascal which determines the dynamic boost frequency which in turn determines the performance. For example, if you can keep the load temp at around 60c instead of 80c, you will see about 5%-10% higher FPS in gaming, although you have no risk of hardware failure in either case. That's why I suggest to keep the GPU as cool as possible within a noise tolerance level.  

For pure gamers (I mean if you only measure your PC performance by gaming), GPU cooling is usually the bigger issue. It doesn't appear so especially for XPS/Alienware users likely because of the following reasons:

1. All factory included mid to high end graphic cards are blower styles, so exhaust is not a big problem.

2. Only a small portion of other users choose to upgrade to an aftermarket card, and an even smaller portion of these choose to upgrade to an open-air card as it is not recommended.

3. Only a smaller portion of the tiny group of users in 2 choose to report such issues because there is not much you can do about the situation. Over time, this group also shrinks as there is no good solution and it's useless to just complain on a forum with no replies. 

4. As you mentioned, CPU and case fan curves are not accessible while GPU fan curve is at least easy to access. That means trading noise for temps and it's somewhat a personal preference. I can tell you how much I appreciate being able to get a load temp of 65c with only 40% fan rpms with the case swap, while before I needed it to run at 80%-100%. I think we potentially have a better solution in this thread even if you stick with the case and air cooling.

 

 

9doge

3 Posts

August 17th, 2019 20:00

they finally fixed it on BIOS 1.1.8 (31 Jul 2019)

HanoverB

798 Posts

August 17th, 2019 21:00

reply to 9doge

they finally fixed it on BIOS 1.1.8 (31 Jul 2019)

------------------

I saw that BIOS a few days ago.  It was to change the thermal profile of the fans...   After installing the BIOS does it affect both the CPU fan and the exhaust fan?   If it did help with the noise issues, did it improve cooling at all? 

HanoverB

798 Posts

August 18th, 2019 07:00

Chrly

2 Posts

November 9th, 2019 05:00

When you spend this kind of money for a Dell computer it should be right - right out of the box!

Chrly

2 Posts

November 9th, 2019 05:00

So why doesn't Dell do this for their customers?!!

Bracken98

5 Posts

April 18th, 2020 16:00

Thanks.

I tried the second option. Not experienced enough to attempt the first !

It's early days so can't say whether it's fixed the noise issue but thanks for taking the time to post. Appreciated.

David

 

TKMDell

1 Message

May 9th, 2020 23:00

This thread is ridiculous; I just bought this computer tower and found my way here because the unit is buzzing wildly. Why should a consumer have to do these things when Dell is aware that they have a design flaw that requires attention? Unreal and disappointing. 

546insp

732 Posts

May 10th, 2020 00:00

I'm not buying an 8000 series PC next time,,,,,,,,,,too bad Dell, wise up.

John-Jay

358 Posts

May 10th, 2020 02:00

@546insp@TKMDell 

 

Totally agree with both of your comments!!

 

The shear volume of Long-Term ongoing Problems, with the XPS 89x0 series, is unbelievable! I really DON'T understand why Dell keeps ignoring them!

 

I would go further, to your comment @546insp , and state that I will NOT get another Dell!

Bracken98

5 Posts

May 10th, 2020 04:00

I agree. Dell should have fixed this. But the solution I tried from this thread (adjusting the settings) has made the PC much less noisy. Important to say I use mine as a business PC, not for gaming.

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