Dell Workstation Owners Club

[Retrorockit]

I've never heard of that HDD cage. But the move to 2.5" SSD has made it redundant I think. Dell's use of the big blue drive caddys always made their drive cages use a lot of space.
I picked up a T7400/ Precision 690 SLI riser card installation kit for $20 NOS. Not the card but the raised rear I/O slot bracket and 120x38mm Delta fan to go with it. It had the required Nvidia chip on it, and ran off of the mysterious extra 10 pin power plug on the 1000W PSU harness. The cards are readily available the kit to use them not so much. The install kit has teh standoffs needed to mount the card.

 

[ManGupta]

In My case HDDs seldom require Cooling .... mostly because most of time they are idle (I use SDD for OS+Programmes ... as a Boot Drive, and 3 HDDs for Data).

HDD temps hover around 35C BUT the temps my SATA SSD which hosts OS hovers around 48-52 C ...... But Sata SSDs cannot be cooled without making their warranty void, as their components are .... sort of ..... inside the closed enclosure hence devoid of any air flow.





host image online

 

[Retrorockit]

I'm not sure 52*C is a problem for solid state components. But it looks like there is a thermal pad going to the cover. So the cover is a heatsink itself. Maybe an old GPU heatsink pasted on there might make a difference.

 

[Susquehannock]

Nice price on that SLI riser card installation kit. Hardware junkie is a trait we have in common it seems. Is that going to be used in your Tx500 system? Look forward to seeing what you do with it.

That is true about SSDs. They can get rather warm. Some people cut theirs open and affix heatsinks direct to the chips. I am not willing to go that far. Some of the laptop SSD coolers can be elaborate (not mine).

SDD were available in the later Dell Tx500s and they make an adapter for it. Suspect it would fit in that HDD cage as well. Moved all my storage up top. 1tb SSD, 1tb HDD, and 4tb HDD for large back up which is turned off in the BIOS until needed. Seems to run cooler up there than in the swing out caddy.

That top cage with fan is not very common and probably for HDD that get constant use, as in a networking environment. Being it connects to a board header, was wondering if anyone knew if SpeedFan gives access to that as it does with the case fans. I do know it gives control over the active cooler on the T5500 board. And if you have the older T5500 board with active cooler on the upper chipset, it gives access to that as well. Four RPM readings in SpeedFan.

Consider myself a test junkie. Always analyzing things. Use smoke from an incense stick to observe airflow patters in and out of the case. Place thermal probe from my multi-meter at various points inside to read temperatures.

My interest in the upper HHD rack was to get more airflow up top during heavy gaming sessions. But not for the drives. Using a full size graphics card, especially a non-blower type which dumps heat inside the case, it creates a wall between top and bottom. Tried two exhaust fans in the lower mounts down bottom. That just seemed to raise temps up top since most air from front fans was being drawn straight out. That rack goes up top in place of these two shields (with blue pull tabs) which are often missing. Drilled holes in the 5.25" shield (p/n xg963) to mount my SSD. Simple yet effective. Lots of open space around the drive.
Disregard the extra holes. My bad. Like the saying goes. Measure twice, cut once

 

[Retrorockit]

The SLI riser was for a T7400 project I wanted to do. First pinmod a couple X5470s to 4GHz 2xCPU, then see if a reverse Xeon swap was possible by converting 2 QX9650 to LGA771. Someone is buying up all the T7400 locally so I never got one. MB,PSU, heatsinks, and that riser, plus the CPUs is as far as that went. A Skulltrail clone is what I was trying for.
I put the T3400 front panel on the T3500 with an air intake grille in both FDD bays.

 

[Susquehannock]

Wondered what it would be like having one of those big cases to tinker with. Found a seller couple hundred miles away that has several working T7500 with twin X5680 and 24gb memory at $400 each. With keyboard & mouse no less. Shipping cost would kill me. Asked what else they had and settled on a X5690. Never got shipping confirmation and was afraid they had seller's remorse at $50. But it arrived today. Will test with RDIMM and check if unlocked. Doubt either will be a surprise. One more for our lists.

 

[ManGupta]

Nice price on that SLI riser card installation kit. Hardware junkie is a trait we have in common it seems. Is that going to be used in your Tx500 system? Look forward to seeing what you do with it.

That is true about SSDs. They can get rather warm. Some people cut theirs open and affix heatsinks direct to the chips. I am not willing to go that far. Some of the laptop SSD coolers can be elaborate (not mine).

View attachment 111060

SDD were available in the later Dell Tx500s and they make an adapter for it. Suspect it would fit in that HDD cage as well. Moved all my storage up top. 1tb SSD, 1tb HDD, and 4tb HDD for large back up which is turned off in the BIOS until needed. Seems to run cooler up there than in the swing out caddy.

That top cage with fan is not very common and probably for HDD that get constant use, as in a networking environment. Being it connects to a board header, was wondering if anyone knew if SpeedFan gives access to that as it does with the case fans. I do know it gives control over the active cooler on the T5500 board. And if you have the older T5500 board with active cooler on the upper chipset, it gives access to that as well. Four RPM readings in SpeedFan.

Consider myself a test junkie. Always analyzing things. Use smoke from an incense stick to observe airflow patters in and out of the case. Place thermal probe from my multi-meter at various points inside to read temperatures.

My interest in the upper HHD rack was to get more airflow up top during heavy gaming sessions. But not for the drives. Using a full size graphics card, especially a non-blower type which dumps heat inside the case, it creates a wall between top and bottom. Tried two exhaust fans in the lower mounts down bottom. That just seemed to raise temps up top since most air from front fans was being drawn straight out. That rack goes up top in place of these two shields (with blue pull tabs) which are often missing. Drilled holes in the 5.25" shield (p/n xg963) to mount my SSD. Simple yet effective. Lots of open space around the drive.
Disregard the extra holes. My bad. Like the saying goes. Measure twice, cut once

SSDs are very light weight. You could have just zip tied it in that area. However in my case I used Floppy Drive area to mount a 4 port USB3 Front Panel Tray (after adding a USB3 PCIE Adapter with a 20 pin header for Front Panel USB3 Ports) and mounted the SSD on the back portion of that tray (the back portion of that tray, by chance, had 2 holes of exact measurement to those on the SSD).

 

[Retrorockit]

I guess I did take a photo of the mockup of the 150x50mm 256cfm fan and the 2 motor 120x50mm fan in the T3500. The fans are actually blowing at each other. I guess i didn't want to take the screen off for the mockup. These fans are dwarfing the macho 120 cooler. But push /pull is all the rage now!

 

[Susquehannock]

Indeed. Attaching the SDD with velcro is a popular option too. Nice modification USB3 hub in place of front vent. A friend did exactly as you described to use Oculus Rift VR set up with T3500 I gave him. Tried them a few times. They give me eye strain and headache.

 

[ManGupta]

I guess I did take a photo of the mockup of the 150x50mm 256cfm fan and the 2 motor 120x50mm fan in the T3500. The fans are actually blowing at each other. I guess i didn't want to take the screen off for the mockup. These fans are dwarfing the macho 120 cooler. But push /pull is all the rage now!

View attachment 111074

Seems like an ultimate Air Cooling Solution.

But , did not get by the phrase "blowing at each other" ..... "The fans are actually blowing at each other" means ... ?? Arent' the two fans blowing the air in same direction ... ??

 

[Retrorockit]

I wasn't going to run that setup. So I didn't bother to take the intake guard off of the 2 motor fan. That's why it's facing the wrong way. Just a mock up to see if it would fit. I always have a few of these large fans around. That fan is too heavy to be hanging off of a heatsink like that anyway. When I use them in BTX they're always mounted to the case. But they can usually be installed in the 120x38 mm fan holder if needed.

Here's one inside an XPS TJ258 cooling assy. Note the 8mm heatpipes and lapped heat spreader. I have one of these in a T3400 ( just to have a Dell workstation reference for this).

 

[8bitgamer757]

)just a question, but do mobile workstations count? (particularly Latitudes?)

 

[Retrorockit]

It might be a better fit at Notebook Review. A lot of us use Throttlestop for overclocking and other things. There's a big TS thread over there since it was designed for battery life and thermal management. They get pretty deep into things over there.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

But that may just reflect my own ignorance of Mobile computers. Others here may know more about them than I do.

 

[SoNic67]

Yesterday I have received some memory that I had ordered: 48GB (6x8GB) 2Rx4 DDR3 Memory RAM PC3-10600R ECC REG DIMM.
Well, my T3500 it didn't boot up with them, with the beep code 1-3-2. My CPU is X5675 that's supposed to support ECC and max 288GB.

I can return the memory in 30 days (pay just the shipping) or I can get a T5500 motherboard to swap. I already have the 860W PS in. I saw one motherboard that's like $40, but then I am thinking - is it worth the trouble to upgrade from the current 24GB?

 

[Retrorockit]

The T3500 has the option of the overclockable CPUs. The T5500 doesn't seem to support them. But you can run 2 of the X5675 in the T5500. I guess the choice is speed vs. expandability and bandwidth.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I guess I did take a photo of the mockup of the 150x50mm 256cfm fan and the 2 motor 120x50mm fan in the T3500. The fans are actually blowing at each other. I guess i didn't want to take the screen off for the mockup. These fans are dwarfing the macho 120 cooler. But push /pull is all the rage now!

View attachment 111074

You really need to turn that fan on the heatsink around..

)just a question, but do mobile workstations count? (particularly Latitudes?)

Sure, a workstation is a workstation. Welcome!

But you can run 2 of the X5675 in the T5500.

You can run X5680's as well. Worth the extra performance.

 

[ManGupta]

Yesterday I have received some memory that I had ordered: 48GB (6x8GB) 2Rx4 DDR3 Memory RAM PC3-10600R ECC REG DIMM.
Well, my T3500 it didn't boot up with them, with the beep code 1-3-2. My CPU is X5675 that's supposed to support ECC and max 288GB.

I can return the memory in 30 days (pay just the shipping) or I can get a T5500 motherboard to swap. I already have the 860W PS in. I saw one motherboard that's like $40, but then I am thinking - is it worth the trouble to upgrade from the current 24GB?

Choice is yours .....
You can continue with t3500 and pair it with overclockable cpu like W3680/90 oc it to 4ghz+

Or switchover to T5500 and use 2 cpus xt675/80/90/87 and also cost advantage of using a registered RAM. But t5500 platforms may not support overclocking.

 

[lexluthermiester]

or I can get a T5500 motherboard to swap.

That's what I'd do.

 

[Retrorockit]

I can return the memory in 30 days (pay just the shipping) or I can get a T5500 motherboard to swap. I already have the 860W PS in. I saw one motherboard that's like $40, but then I am thinking - is it worth the trouble to upgrade from the current 24GB?

It really depends on what you're using your computer for. For gaming 24 GB and 6C/12T is plenty, and an overclock would be useful. If you're going to have several virtual machines running handling large files then you could probably use more of everything and the overclock could prove risky. The T3500 makes a nice budget gaming rig. The T5500 get's you into serious workstation territory for a few bucks more. It's kind of a toys vs. tools decision.

As far as the 2nd big fan goes I'm afraid that the 170CFM 2 motor fan would just be in the way of the 256CFM 150mm fan. Any time I can use the 150x50mm fan that's what I will do. It's quieter, more powerful and uses about half the current. The 2 motor 120x50mm fan is fun to sneak into the Dell fan housings for the Delta 120x38 fan which is a pretty potent fan to begin with. The 150x50mm is a huge upgrade from the 2 motor 120x50mm fan. I actually took that photo to make fun of the aftermarket push/pull 120x25mm fan setups. It would serve no purpose as an actual cooling mod.

 

[SoNic67]

I could not OC this board yet.
As for the RAM quantity, I am using 6GB of it for RAM-cache. Especially useful for the writes on the SSD, to prevent wear, but also for caching the reads from HDD's.

LE: I have made an offer of $35 for the T5500 MoBo and the seller accepted it. Free shipping.

 

[8bitgamer757]

Well then i have a question, I have a Dell Latitude D630 with a mechanical hard drive, if i upgrade this to an ssd will i see performance improvements? the hard drive is a Toshiba 120Gb 5400RPM drive

 

[lexluthermiester]

Well then i have a question, I have a Dell Latitude D630 with a mechanical hard drive, if i upgrade this to an ssd will i see performance improvements? the hard drive is a Toshiba 120Gb 5400RPM drive

Oh yes, a big improvement.

 

[8bitgamer757]

also would there be a cpu upgrade somewhere out there that would improve performance further? then again, i have already figured out how hot it gets under heavy load (synthetic testing shows that to almost 200 (92 C!) degrees before thermal throttling and this laptop hovers between 60-70 under normal operating conditions

 

[lexluthermiester]

also would there be a cpu upgrade somewhere out there that would improve performance further?

That depends on what's in it now and what CPU range it can take. To be fair, it's upgrade options are going to be limited, but also inexpensive.

then again, i have already figured out how hot it gets under heavy load (synthetic testing shows that to almost 200 (92 C!) degrees before thermal throttling and this laptop hovers between 60-70 under normal operating conditions

You should clean out the vents and reapply the TIM(Thermal Interface Compound). Dell's are easily to work on for the most part. Do you have the service tag? We can look up specs and figure out what it can take.

 

[8bitgamer757]

im at school right now so i dont have access to the laptop but i do know it has a C2D T7250 @ 2.00 Ghz, 4gb DDR2, and Intel integrated graphics