AGH! I hate my Dell Dimension 8250! No more prebuilts for me

[Lore]

I bought my Dell Dimension 2.4ghz 8250 last Thanksgiving to take advantage of the awesome rebates that I as a student received.

I have never felt so restricted in my life working with computers. Everything in this computer is proprietary, down to the CPU bracket so that I can't even install my own heatsink/fan on the chip! I don't have any more PCI slots available, for example, and can't even install a separate fan to cool the thing down. (It only has ONE Fan cooling the entire system, not including the power supply fan -- and with a SCSI 10K HD in there, it gets real hot on these 95+ degree days)

I think I'm going to find a way back to building my own computer again... unfortunately it's probably going to be costly, unless I take parts from the Dimension and use them.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting this is to get some suggestions from y'all as to what I should do. I have a spare Abit BD7II-RAID mobo but that's about it. I'd even need to get a new case.. grr, more money out of my pocket.

If you have any suggestions let me know.

 

[Wolfsraider]

lore,

since you are looking to add a fan ...why not add a molex splitter to cool that hdd?like this but local is cheaper unless you get free shipping
hth

mike

 

[Lore]

Oh, I have all those splitters... Just that there's no way to mount the fans I want into the case. Talk about restrictive!

Thanks anyway, tho!

 

[dexvx]

If you're so ticked off about the case, just move the PSU and motherboard into a new case. Problem solved.

My work computer is a Dell Optiplex G260. It shares the same case as the 8250, and it runs a 3.06HT with a 10K RPM scsi drive with no problems. The heat tolerance on these is quite high. Although 95F is about the limit for operating temperature.

 

[Lore]

How would you move the motherboard into a new case? From what I can tell, the motherboard isn't standard ATX layout.

 

[McCarthy]

You make more w(h)ine than Jesus did when he was down to two fishes and loaves.

Get creative. If you're not creative then prebuilts are all you're up to dealing with.

Why do you need to install your own CPU cooler? The stock one not working? Or did you find some way to overclock on the supplied motherboard?

"I bought a Chrysler and they won't let me race at LeMans"

Sorry, but you don't deserve advice with this attitude. Mocking is even a stretch.

 

[Lore]

McCarthy:

I'm sorry if you find my message cocky or full of attitude; it was not intended that way. I had just spent close to 18 hours (combined over 3 days) trying to figure out how to reduce noise and keep the system cool at the same time. Top that off with some Windows XP problems (see my other thread in GH) and I was so ready to throw this machine out my window.

But in answer to your question, the stock cooler is actually a passive heatsink with a shroud over it. The shroud leads to the back of the case where there's a 80mm (or is it 90?) NMB fan that is responsible for sucking all of the system's hot air out. On these hot summer days, the fan gets VERY loud. Many Dell Dimension 8250 customers are actually up in arms because of Dell's choice of fans (see the Dell Community Forums regarding this) and Dell's engineers are looking into this. I guess Dell equipped these computers with either fans by NMB (preferred) or fans by Datech (sp). The latter is apparently poorly designed/manufactured and cause a lot of problems, but both fans are really loud when hot.

I wanted to replace the entire heatsink block with a retail P4 heatsink that I have, but because of the proprietary CPU bracket, the heatsink won't fit. Furthermore, I discovered while reading the Dell forums that if you disable the rear fan, the system won't boot because it'll think the fan failed.

I've tried being creative with plastic ties and some Sunon 80mm fans but can't find a place to mount them without them shaking the entire case.

 

[sandorski]

While the weather's hot, just remove the side of the case and use a house fan to cool things. Not an elegant solution, but it will get you through the summer.