I didn’t see 8400 internals … but can tell you that my experiments with generic boxes are showing that replacement of a stock (Intel) fan with (any generic) 80 mm, achieves the best cooling results.

More details:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/mymodzmain.htm

Pictures:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/mymodz1.htm


Hope this helps!

Thanks for the advice and the helpful website.  The cpu has a large heatsink standard for Dell  on the P4 530 (3 GHz HT 800fsb).  But the addition of a more serious and quieter 80mm fan for the case seems a good idea.  I don't know about the heatsink.  It's not branded, made in China, but that doesn't mean it's no good, of course.  The power supply is not labelled either.  I think I'll try your suggestions first before radical cooling projects.

Note to msgale - I have owned 12 Dells in my home and business, and like you I have never had a heating or fan noise issue - until now.  By falling into the dreaded "GOTTA HAVE IT" pit, I upgraded to a hyperthreading cpu, that hasn't been that noticeably faster, and sure runs ALOT hotter.  No way can I put the box under my desk in the computer cabinet without almost pealing the varnish!

Brian

Dell Dim P4 530 3 Ghz,  1GB DDR2,  PCIE ATI Radeon x300SE,  160 GB SATA & 300 GB SATA, SB Audigy2Z,  Windows XP Pro, Trend Micro PC-cillin, AdAware & SpyBot S&D

 

That's strange, my 8400 makes almost no noise at all, and it never gets warm even during intense applications and games like Halflife 2.

Yeah, same here. My 8400 is very quiet and the only time I ever notice any kind of noise is when it is completely quiet, and when it is quiet it is never that loud. Otherwise, I never hear anything.

Everyone's opinion of loud differs, but I must say, my computer is never loud enough to overcome the music coming out of my speakers when they are on a low volume.

You might have a bad fan or something like that
Run the Dell Diagnostics (F12 on startup) and see what comes up in terms of the fans.

Edit:
If the noise is really bothersome, try calling up Dell Tech support and see if they can replace it or something like that.

Message Edited by Brainonska511 on 05-09-2005 04:35 PM

it might be possible that when your PC overheated it killed the thermal pad or paste between the heatsink and CPU. Also does your new fan look the same as the old one because your new fan might blow less air and be a lot louder. You siad the fan speeds up to high revs when defragmenting. my cpu is usualy at idle temp when defraging. Like i said about the thermal paste it could have somehow it might have damsged the heatsink or the CPU too. like brain siad run a diagnostics and if it tells you the CPU temp tell us what it is

Message Edited by HTT Good HT Bad on 05-10-2005 03:32 PM

I had to replace the fans AND heatsink on my Gen3 to get the fan noise to stop. I believe that Dell may have installed defective heatsinks on some of the systems. You should have DELL relace your heatsink as well.

Thanks for the help - everyone.  I contacted Dell  -I mght get somewhere on the heatsink issue, but i probably will invest in a better fan system anyway.  The pci fan is intriguing, and its listed as very low dB.  Weird - the fan seems to spin up on strange intervals when the computer shouldn't be hot at all.  I ran the diagnostics (from F12) and no errors, but fan tests were limited to speed test and a vague thermal state "safe" comment - though it also reports no thermal probe identified and no temp was given.  The fan at 2400 RPM sounds like a freight train - but so did the original one before Dell replaced it.  So whatever controls the fan speed seems to blame, or possibly the heat sink is not dissapating heat well and it maybe it IS overheating frequently.  Oh well - I think I know more now, so I'll reply back when Dell finishes with me and/or I get a new fan/heat sink. 

Thanks for the help  - this forum is great (another reason to buy Dell)

 

It seemes like that the thermal probe in the CPU itself might be dead. All P4s have a built in thermal sensor. So when your system overheated it probably killed the CPUs thermal probe so the mother board has to guess at what to set the fan at.

On my 5100 laptop if i click on environment in the symptom tree it states the CPU temp. It might be the same for desktops but like you said it said that no temo probe was found so it is probably your CPU

Sounds like "the truth' as opposed to the lack of help I got with Dell support.  They, of course, made me go through the usual waste of time diagnostics that i tried to tell them I had already done several times.  Then they shelved it.  I will try to use this possible explanation.  It makes sense to me!

I am also having loud fan problems. Although after opening the case the noise is coming from the power supply. What is the best way to remedy this problem. Can I just replace the power supply? What is the voltage on the 8400 PS? And are the size of PS standard size?