Need upgrade for Optiplex 990 Minitower Power Supply

[kapalua12]

It came with a 265 watt supply. I want an 80 plus gold certified replacement that will actually fit a Dell. Height: 85 mm, Depth : 140 mm, Width: 150 mm

I upgraded the RAM to 16 GB and want to upgrade the video card which is now minimalistic. Yet I don't want to get too powerful a supply as the new card will be a mid range card...$100 to $200.

Processor is i7 2600, 2 HDD's

It seems Dell pulls air through the back of the power supply and exhausts it. Most of the replacements I see (Corsair) pull inside computer air from the side of the Power Supply and then exhaust through to the back. Will this disrupt Dell's Optiplex 990 airflow and cooling?

kapalua

 

[kapalua12]

Anyone? A modular one please.

 

[kapalua12]

I just managed to install the Seasonic 650 watt X series PS in my Dell Optiplex 990. A bit of a chore getting the PS past all the obstacles but it runs like a charm and fits perfectly. Fan doesn't even go on until it draws 20 percent of maximum load. Quiet.

 

[ElFenix]

are you sure it didn't come with a 90% efficient supply? that's one of the available options on the 990. the fact that it's a $0 upgrade tells me the supply may have been gold to begin with.

spcr folks are after all sorts of odd form factor dell supplies because they're really efficient.

here's the list from 80 plus
http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80PlusPowerSuppliesDetail.aspx?id=26&type=2

 

[kapalua12]

I did order it with a 90 % efficient power supply. Problem is the supply is only 265 watts maximum and prevents me from adding a decent video card.

The Seasonic 650 X fit in quite easily and the modular cabling allowed for a clean layout in this smallish case. I wish I could add an extra intake fan to the front grill and improve the fan on the rear of the case and still have it remain pretty quiet as it is now.

 

[ElFenix]

ah, yeah that would be an issue.

you should sell that power supply, might make your money back on it. though if dell ever has to do warranty work they may require that PS being in it :hmm:

 

[bhimself]

Hi Kapalua12,
I registered here just to ask a favor if you could.
I saw this and your posts on Dell's forums (btw, i'm pretty sure its just PCI-E 2.0, not 2.1)

Anyway, I was looking at doing the same thing to my soon-to-arrive 990 (should arrive ~1 week or so) and really wanted to pop in a better power supply and an EVGA 02G-P3-1568-KR GeForce GTX 560 TI.

The question I have, and the favor i'd like to ask, is according to Dell docs, that max length of the port is a small 7.4" and the 6X50 ATI's that come w/ the 990 are ~6.6". But from the best pics I can find, it seems like I might be able to squeeze in a 9" card if it'll fit over the sata connections. (perhaps some right angle connectors will be needed, can't tell).

What are you going to put in there? Is there room for a GTX560 at all?

Thanks in advance!
B

 

[bhimself]

Oh, and just found another forum of yours where you asked about USB 3.0 card on PCI trying to go into PCIe on that x4 channel.

You'll want to google/double-check, but I'm not aware of any actual PCI USB 3.0 cards from NEC, In fact, it also SHOULD also be PCIe. In which case, putting it in the x4 channel would be just fine.

BUT, if i'm wrong, PCI cannot go into PCIe, at all. (different notches and all too, made for stopping such things.)

But if it's this thing from NEC http://www2.renesas.com/news/en/archive/0905/1801.html then it says here that it's PCIe 2.0 and it should be fine.

I've got a firewire card the same way I figure I'll have to move down to that channel.
(i'm "upgrading" from an optiplex 980 to the 990)

Anyway, good luck.

 

[ElFenix]

correct, PCI and PCIe are different things and not compatible.

 

[kapalua12]

@ bhimself: I measured inside the case pretty carefully and there's definitely length for a 9.5 inch GPU. You'd simply have to loosen some of the cable ties of some cables which cross in front of the HDD cage and lift them on top of the new card. I believe even a 10 inch card will fit bit it will be very tight length wise. The stock 9100 dollar upgrade purchase with the system was a waste of money. NewEgg has them for 49 dollars and it's close to worthless anyway, but again the system is intended for business users who generally don't care about the quality of their GPU and most don't even know the difference. It's definitely coming out as soom as I decide 670TI vs. Radeon "something".


@ ElFenix: Where's the best place to sell the new stock 90 percent efficient PS that came with the system? E Bay? What's it worth?

 

[kapalua12]

@ ElFenix: Where can I safely move the USB 3 card to? It only has a few connectors into the PCI slot and putting it into the PCI 4 slot seems like it wouldn't work since the 4 slot has so many more terminals (for lack of the proper word. Sorry).

 

[ElFenix]

@ ElFenix: Where's the best place to sell the new stock 90 percent efficient PS that came with the system? E Bay? What's it worth?

apparently silentpcreview.com does not have a buy/sell/trade forum. odd. they're the people who are most after those sorts of supplies because very few low wattage gold supplies are available at retail.

you could try here or ebay.


are you sure that card is PCI and not PCIe? if you look on wikipedia you can se what a PCI connector looks like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI

and an x4 PCIe connector looks different:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...R&tag=at055-20

as you can see it's a much smaller connector than regular PCI. its also closer to the back of the computer.

if it is a PCIe card, a x1 or x4 card will work in an x16 slot. often, x4 slots are physically x16 for the extra support as you can put an x16 graphics card in an x4 slot.

 

[kapalua12]

Elfenix, thanks. I'll check it out at the office tomorrow I believe the NEC device is a Pci e device from your description. It looks a lot more like that picture than the larger PCI longer slot and therefore longer electrical insert. I'll look tomorrow at the office.

If so, that's good news. I can then easily fit a dual slot GPU.

 

[Jelorian]

Hi there, just registered so that I could reply to this thread. My company was evaluating the 990's however, they wanted me to check if we could install an aftermarket power supply so we could install more powerful video cards.

I wish I found this thread earlier and saw that the dimensions of the replacement power supply need to be 150mm x 140mm x 86mm (5.9" x 5.5" x 3.4").

I have one on order now and I think I should be golden. Darn you Dell and all your proprietariness (not sure if this word exists! haha!)

With regards to the latch mechanism to open and close the case, it almost seems like they designed it to foil our attempts at installing 3rd party aftermarket parts as the latch definitely gets in the way.

I'm going to install a Nvidia 9800GT which is a full length card and I think I'll have just barely enough space to plug in the power plug. A dual width card might fit, but like other posters have mentioned the SATA cables will have to go up and over the card.

 

[bhimself]

Hey Guys! This is great information, thanks for posting.

@Kapalua12: Thanks for measuring & replying. I was concerned a bit about relying solely on my photoshopping skills to determine whether I should buy a PSU/GPU before getting my hands on the 990. If you thought this was a P.I.T.A, check out the work required for my current 980 here. So i was thinking this was a step in the right direction at least.

@Jelorian: Thanks for joining in. You bring up something that I didn't think was an issue looking at Dell's schematics. I was looking at the same SeaSonic Kapalua12 put in, thinking if it worked once... But dimensions for it are 5.9" x 3.38" x 5.9".

From the pics, (as dell has delayed my 990 order again) i thought the latch looked about 1.5'-2" away from the PSU as the dark grey thing attached to the top of the case. How does this get in the way of a PSU the same physical size (your 600w'er) as their original?

Thanks!

 

[Jelorian]

Hey Guys! This is great information, thanks for posting.

@Jelorian: Thanks for joining in. You bring up something that I didn't think was an issue looking at Dell's schematics. I was looking at the same SeaSonic Kapalua12 put in, thinking if it worked once... But dimensions for it are 5.9" x 3.38" x 5.9".

From the pics, (as dell has delayed my 990 order again) i thought the latch looked about 1.5'-2" away from the PSU as the dark grey thing attached to the top of the case. How does this get in the way of a PSU the same physical size (your 600w'er) as their original?

Thanks!

Bummer that they are lagging on your order. Hopefully they'll get their act together.

With regards to the latch getting in the way, I basically tried to fit the same power supply that we had been putting in out 960's which is a Zalman 600W and is slightly larger. No go.

Measured the OEM one I pulled out and sure enough it was smaller than the Zalman and the exact dimensions kapalua12 mentioned in his previous post.

The dimensions of the Seasonic as listed by your link on Newegg are 6.3" x 5.9" x 3.4" which translates to 160mm x 150mm x 86mm. This guy won't fit if it is the same one that Kapalua12 put in his. Maybe he was able to, but I couldn't get the Zalman (5.9"(L) x 6.5"(W) x 3.4"(H) to fit.

The dimensions of the OEM PS is 150mm x 140mm x 86mm which translates to 5.9" x 5.5" x 3.4".

 

[Jelorian]

I just received the Corsair CX600 Builder Series power supply and installed it. Went in no problem. The OEM PS was so minimalist and had just bare amount of connectors, while the Corsair has everything so you have to put the extra cables somewhere. I was able to install a full length Geforce 9800 GT as well.

 

[kapalua12]

The dimensions of my stock 265 watt 90 % efficient Dell PS are 140 mm long (deep) or 5.5 ". The Seasonic 650 X I put in is 6.3 " long. I though this might be a problem but I just depressed the latch on the Dell case and held it down with a tongue depressor to keep it down and out of the way and voila, the Seasonic fits in great. The Seasonic power supply, once screwed into the back of the case and held by all the aluminum fins Dell puts in there is perfectly solid and stable without that Dell latch. The 6.3 inches (or 160 mm ) long Seasonic fits like a charm. I have yet to even have the fan come on.

Now if I could actually get a decent GPU that clears the SATA headers I'd be golden. Having the various cables come up over the GPU card is a non issue. There's plenty of room, it's the length of the GPU blocked by the RAM slots and mostly the SATA headers that is the problem.

 

[bhimself]

Well, Dell just called today and told me again that my order was delayed. (I now shouldn't expect to see my computer until 11/7 at the earliest. Dagnabbit!!)

I did just want to introduce y'all to this riser, in case the satas/RAM slots are too stubborn for a proper video card. EBAY Link

I did order a 560TI just for the free batman, i'll make the dang thing fit in there if I ever get my 990...