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need help with Dell mid-tower case cooling ideas

vois2

Banned
Hello and thanks in advance for reading.

I have a Dell Dimension 8400 -- this is in their pretty standard mid-tower ATX case. These cases change slightly over time with new models but don't change much ... so it has the one heat-shrouded exhaust for the large CPU fan.

Recently I've had the opportunity to test two separate, but identical, 7900 GTs in this machine. Before shipping off one of these to a friend, I first benchmarked the two cards for some days in my Dimension 8400.

For both of the 7900GTs, the temps were idle 48 C and hot 61 C, in my Dell.
I sent off one of the cards to my friend, who overclocked his from 450MHz to 562MHz ... and his temps never rise above 55 C even when running 3dMark06 for thirty minutes.

So, it pretty much confirms what I had suspected long ago, which is that Dell has particularly poor cooling solutions in their mid-tower cases.

I'd like tips on what I can do to help cool my machine. It might be that you would need to be familiar with Dell's cases in order to offer the best advice.
 
Dell's BTX chassis is designed to cool their stock setups quietly. Harddisk cooling and expansion card cooling is... lacking. 😛 Anything more than a better video card heatsink or a card cooler would probably lead me to seeing if I can mount a rear exhaust fan and a duct somewhere, or start hacking the side panel-- IIRC the side panel has a metal support rail running vertically near the back half, so that may not be that easy...
 
Buy a cheapo case and replace the dell. Much better than hacking away at it (and loosing any warranty you might have), also less time consuming.
 
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