Water cooling possible on Dimension 4700?

[Butter1215]

Is water cooling possible on my dimension 4700 or not? I know I cant upgrade to a diffrent heat sink because the retention bracket is rectangular... do you think the same applies for the water cooling blocks?

[Moto7451]

What do you mean you can't upgrade because the bracket is rectangular? The stock Pentium 4 S478 bracket is rectangular. Dell, to my knowledge, always uses standard heatsink mounting hardware.

[Butter1215]

Dell installs proprietary parts and the only way I could upgrade my processor heatsink/fan combo (I have an LGA 775 socket) was to swap out the whole retention bracket which I didnt wanna do so I left it as is... but now since I wanna do some cooling in my computer I was originally gonna do 3 120mm fans but I really wanted to do water cooling... and I wanna do it but if I have to swap out the retention bracket like I would if I would have replaced the heatsink/fan I dont think its worth going through all that trouble...

[Captain Helghas]

got pics?

[Captain Slug]

The 4700 uses Dell's newer heatsink design which only varies from the Intel spec a little bit due to the reinforced retention bracket. But functionally it is identical.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4700/sm/parts103.jpg
If you buy a new HSF that's compatible with LGA775 it will usually come with the mounting hardware you need so you don't have to jump to water to solve a non-existant problem.
Dell's stock heatsink is actually a VERY good performer so even upgrading to a newer sink will only net you the gain of allowing you to mount a different fan onto the heatsink instead of onto the case. The stock fan bracket was designed to fit a 92x92x38mm fan which is a very obscure fan and in order to fit 92x92x25mm fans you might have to drill holes for fan screws.

The only thing non-standard in their setup is their fan headers have different pinouts to allow for hardware speed control. But you shouldn't be connecting fans to the motherboard anyways if you're replacing any of the parts.

I don't see water being too practical in your situation since the case is very cramped an wouldn't offer enough space to include effective water cooling equipment.

[Captain Helghas]

One more reason to hate Dell.

[soulfly1448]

Dude, for real. Why the hell spend money on extra cooling on that Dell? Is it overclocked? Didn't think so. Save that money and start building your own rig. One that merits aftermarket cooling.

[Butter1215]

I was actually planing on taking the components from the dell mobo and swapping them into a SLi mobo and just get a new case n all that

[citronym]

One more reason to hate Dell.
While I agree this is a pain to work with, I don't think its a good reason to hate Dell. It isn't exactly aimed at our corner of the market.

[Captain Slug]

Yeah really. The most you can do is swap fans because the heatsink really doesn't need a significant amount of airflow to keep the processor at stable temps.
If you want to overclock you're going to have to get a different motherboard and a different case. Even a $20 cheap-o case will afford you more options than a cramped proprietary mATX case.

[Butter1215]

Yea I might do what I posted 2 posts up

[soloz2]

yeah, you could wc it. pimp that dell! :D

[Butter1215]

LOL.... does anyone know how high a 2.8GHz P4 with HT has ever been overclocked? (must be stable) because I can overclock my CPU if I buy a new motherboard in BIOS correct?

[Captain Slug]

Correct, assuming you also get a stable PSU.

[fhanderson]

I just worked on a Dell 8400 with 825X chipset 775 MB. The holes in the MB are closer to socket 478 than 775. Before you consider aftermarket cooling I would measure to see exactly what heatsink or waterblock you need.

[Deathknight]

While I agree this is a pain to work with, I don't think its a good reason to hate Dell. It isn't exactly aimed at our corner of the market.

Actually this is a perfect reason to hate Dell. Their constant circumvention of industry standards ensures that all replacement parts need to be dell OEM parts for an easy replacement.

In this particular case I can see their motivation, but in most cases I scratch my head and wonder what exactly is the point of their proprietary parts, except to line their pockets a second time when repairs are needed.

[Butter1215]

Would a OCZ 520W PSU be stable?

[Deathknight]

Would a OCZ 520W PSU be stable?
That would power all but the most demanding of OCed machines.

[Butter1215]

so should I maybe upgrade to the 600W or do you think the 520 will be fine Oc'ing my P4 and running sli?

[Vaio]

The 520 is a beast. I love mine, and I can see no reason to run anything bigger unless you have a Conroe based quad SLI computer with 8 hard drives and enough lights to make Vegas jealous.

That, or if you feel the need to compensate for shortcomings elsewhere ;)

[Butter1215]

well my plans are to run SLi and just overclock my cpu