My Water Cooled BTX DELL Dimension

[Istillusefloppy]

I know DELL what is this guy thinking!


I just wanted to share some shots from my recent project. I know my computer is a Pentium D relic but I love it and it has faithfully served me plenty images and videos of porn over the past 7 years and a couple games here and there, and some school projects tossed in. I modded out my dell about as good as she could be but of course I ran into some cooling problems.

The stock dell cooling system sucks for modified computers and mine was running constantly after I upgraded my processor.

I had to make a bracket for it to fit. I did this by removing the stock heat sink mount and used the holes to mount the bracket I made. It tight and not even zues himself coult pull it free.

The suck part was the face that the capacitors are in the way so you can't use any of the corsair brackets and customize them to fit. You have to make your own.




Here the type of clearance you get in the cramped Dell case fortunately the radiator reaches just fine to sit in the stock fan area. I'm using the stock fan attatched to the radiator. I'm not bothering with them.





Well that's about it. Other than that runs fine and has been cooling my computer just fine. So if you don't think you can run one of these in a BTX yah can. It's a little bit of work but the reward feels good.

 

[misternumberone]

Owner of two Dell XPS 430s, a Dell Dimension 9100(A.K.A. XPS 400 but mine is technically a 9100 because the LAN controller IS different) and a Dell Precision T3400 MB (sadly I haven't got it to work yet, I suspect because BIOS may only be A09 and I have no 65nm C2Q/D/X ) and I have modded my main XPS 430 comp so much it's not really on the performance level of any normal Dell anymore. Modifications I have done:

Case Mod for addition of very decent 600W OCZ ATX modular PSU
Case Mod and addition of external Clear CMOS button
Case Mod for making the sixth main rear I/O USB port accessible for charging stuff(it has 5V power but does not actually carry data, is not wired to USB controller or southbridge)
Case Mod for 96mm rear exhaust fan
Case Mod for two more FULLY FUNCTIONAL, ONBOARD USB 2.0 PORTS at the bottom of the case(uses the functional but unused internal headers near bottom of MB)
Upgrade to Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650
Upgrade to Arctic Silver 5 on all heatinks
small but much-needed passive southbridge heatsink
addition of much-needed small 40mm fan on northbridge heatsink
upgrade to one of several practically identical models of Dell BTX heatsink that has 3 heatpipes and is full-height, as apposed to that really short lame one XPS 420s came with and the two-heatpipe one later sold in XPS 430s; you probably already have it, as I got it out of my Dimension 9100. I think it's in the dimensions because Pentium Ds run so ungodly hot.
Upgrade to a massive 6 and 6+2 pin HIS Radeon HD 4890 "Turbo+" with a massive factory OC of 965mhz core and a 1050Mhz effective GDDR5 memory clock. I've been trying hard to get it in crossfire with my other HD 4890, as the chipset should support it, regardless of BIOS, but due to this weird thing Dell seems to have forced that I had problems with for a very long time, The MB blankly refuses to function with more than a single GPU installed, no exceptions. I've tried literally everything possible, I've concluded it's for some reason impossible for me even though I met another XPS 430 owner who somehow got a 4870X2 and 4890 crossfire to work.
Upgrade to Intel 320 series 80GB SATA II SSD, keeping two 500GB seagate barracuda 7200.9 drives in RAID 1 for storage.
Upgrade to 2x4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600(XPS 430 has DDR3 )
Installation of two identical sony optiaric DVD-RW SATA II optical drives
Installation of an official Dell/TEAC CAB-200 memory card reader BLUETOOTH VERSION(but the bluetooth does not work because I use windows 7 and the driver is very poorly coded, and only works properly with Windows Vista; it took a lot of tinkering, modding, tweaking and a bricked CAB-200 to get the driver to do just the memory card reading to work, even then for some reason only the SD and MS Pro/Duo card slots work and unfortunately the SD card slot can only read SD cards, not write, it crashes the CAB-200 driver and windows explorer in the process(if windows explorer was trying to write the SD) when I try to write an SD card.)
Addition of simple 2-port PCI-e x1 USB 3.0 card(I have a USB 3 external 10,000RPM HD that works well with this )
Installation of TP-LINK N-600 PCI WNA
modification of the way the Card Cage 96mm fan is mounted; new way reduces space and improves airflow by about 153%
Upgrade of main CPU 140mm fan to a roaring Delta one of same thickness but about 300% the performance-and noise level(headphone gamer )
Addition of nice official 2009-style Intel Core 2 Extreme Inside sticker to front in replacement of old C2Q and Windows Vista stickers(yes I am a person who likes the stickers)
After a long 7 months of hardship, I finally obtained a STABLE +200MHZ OVERCLOCK ON THE CPU about 5 months ago. It was UNBELIEVABLY HARD and I researched and tinkered for hours and hours every day, slowly progressing, until the final Prime95 passed. At 7:12 AM CST on April 28, 2012, the 48th hour of the 143rd Prime95 test was over. It was all done.

DELL DOES NOT WANT TO BE OVERCLOCKED. That is for CERTAIN.

 

[Istillusefloppy]

Owner of two Dell XPS 430s, a Dell Dimension 9100(A.K.A. XPS 400 but mine is technically a 9100 because the LAN controller IS different) and a Dell Precision T3400 MB (sadly I haven't got it to work yet, I suspect because BIOS may only be A09 and I have no 65nm C2Q/D/X ) and I have modded my main XPS 430 comp so much it's not really on the performance level of any normal Dell anymore. Modifications I have done:

Case Mod for addition of very decent 600W OCZ ATX modular PSU
Case Mod and addition of external Clear CMOS button
Case Mod for making the sixth main rear I/O USB port accessible for charging stuff(it has 5V power but does not actually carry data, is not wired to USB controller or southbridge)
Case Mod for 96mm rear exhaust fan
Case Mod for two more FULLY FUNCTIONAL, ONBOARD USB 2.0 PORTS at the bottom of the case(uses the functional but unused internal headers near bottom of MB)
Upgrade to Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650
Upgrade to Arctic Silver 5 on all heatinks
small but much-needed passive southbridge heatsink
addition of much-needed small 40mm fan on northbridge heatsink
upgrade to one of several practically identical models of Dell BTX heatsink that has 3 heatpipes and is full-height, as apposed to that really short lame one XPS 420s came with and the two-heatpipe one later sold in XPS 430s; you probably already have it, as I got it out of my Dimension 9100. I think it's in the dimensions because Pentium Ds run so ungodly hot.
Upgrade to a massive 6 and 6+2 pin HIS Radeon HD 4890 "Turbo+" with a massive factory OC of 965mhz core and a 1050Mhz effective GDDR5 memory clock. I've been trying hard to get it in crossfire with my other HD 4890, as the chipset should support it, regardless of BIOS, but due to this weird thing Dell seems to have forced that I had problems with for a very long time, The MB blankly refuses to function with more than a single GPU installed, no exceptions. I've tried literally everything possible, I've concluded it's for some reason impossible for me even though I met another XPS 430 owner who somehow got a 4870X2 and 4890 crossfire to work.
Upgrade to Intel 320 series 80GB SATA II SSD, keeping two 500GB seagate barracuda 7200.9 drives in RAID 1 for storage.
Upgrade to 2x4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600(XPS 430 has DDR3 )
Installation of two identical sony optiaric DVD-RW SATA II optical drives
Installation of an official Dell/TEAC CAB-200 memory card reader BLUETOOTH VERSION(but the bluetooth does not work because I use windows 7 and the driver is very poorly coded, and only works properly with Windows Vista; it took a lot of tinkering, modding, tweaking and a bricked CAB-200 to get the driver to do just the memory card reading to work, even then for some reason only the SD and MS Pro/Duo card slots work and unfortunately the SD card slot can only read SD cards, not write, it crashes the CAB-200 driver and windows explorer in the process(if windows explorer was trying to write the SD) when I try to write an SD card.)
Addition of simple 2-port PCI-e x1 USB 3.0 card(I have a USB 3 external 10,000RPM HD that works well with this )
Installation of TP-LINK N-600 PCI WNA
modification of the way the Card Cage 96mm fan is mounted; new way reduces space and improves airflow by about 153%
Upgrade of main CPU 140mm fan to a roaring Delta one of same thickness but about 300% the performance-and noise level(headphone gamer )
Addition of nice official 2009-style Intel Core 2 Extreme Inside sticker to front in replacement of old C2Q and Windows Vista stickers(yes I am a person who likes the stickers)
After a long 7 months of hardship, I finally obtained a STABLE +200MHZ OVERCLOCK ON THE CPU about 5 months ago. It was UNBELIEVABLY HARD and I researched and tinkered for hours and hours every day, slowly progressing, until the final Prime95 passed. At 7:12 AM CST on April 28, 2012, the 48th hour of the 143rd Prime95 test was over. It was all done.

DELL DOES NOT WANT TO BE OVERCLOCKED. That is for CERTAIN.

haha nice

I knew there were more of us out there. You're right the Pentium D's run super hot but really I've learned Dells just run super hot. These models anyway. They hardly have any real airflow in that crampled little box. My rooms always been hotter because of it...it's like an oven.

I have 3tb hd,Pentium D 960,4mb of Ram (how did you get 8 gigs in there does it work? I heard rumor it can?) Gs600Psu, Evga GEforce card, actually I lied I have a 9150mb in a 9100. My old motherboard became a victim of dell modification research R.I.P. I expand the rear USB to a 5 slot to accept my music gear. Updated my card to a Delta 1010LT. Got a disk reader and of course my A:\ drive still. I'm about to modify the case and put an exhaust fan in.

I was so ready to drop $1,500 on a building an X79 but man I couldn't see a reason too. My modded and loaded dell has always done what I wanted it to do. Bios sucks and the fact that these things are like Ovens suck but they are reliable and easy to work with. Windows XP is the stuff and everyone knows it. Your X79's are nothing and you all know it! Long live Windows XP Forever!

 

[Conumdrum]

You can help temps if you have the case side on by some severe intervention of the wire management in those pics. I can see why the case runs hot.

Anyhoo, neat setup and great 'make it work' skillz. Reminds me of the old days before there were premade easy to purchase cooling stuff.

Thanks, fun read. XP is fine. I moved to W7 a while back. As long as your happy. Dunno if that ol' DELL would like W7 anyway.

 

[Istillusefloppy]

You can help temps if you have the case side on by some severe intervention of the wire management in those pics. I can see why the case runs hot.

haha, yeah there's not much room for running the thick loomed wires cleanly in the dell case but actually my wires are a mess because I had to unplug them and push them out the way to get access to the CPU. I usually have them twist tied up and tucked in behind the CD rom drive.

That's another problem with Dell if you upgrade your PSU, you end up with an electrical octopuss just dangling everywhere. What also sucks is that the Evga GTX has a fan too but it's right by the heatsink shroud dell uses so it's like nothing but hot air pushing even hotter air inside the case. I'm thinking about adding in some door fans to help the air flow (you don't need the Heatstink after doing the H60 mod).

 

[Nebulous]

You know when you can fabricate your own mounting hardware and make it work, then you deserve mad kudos!

I've fabricated loads of stuff over the years. I just fabricated a power supply mount for a case that didn't have one. Unfortunately the build was for my g/f and I broke it off with her today After I finish the build I'll sell it

 

[Bobnova]

I love it!
Good work!
That's oldschool cooling applied to New and Snazzy cooling bits. Beautiful.

 

[misternumberone]

You have a Dimension 9100/9150, which I have too, and it runs hot because of the pentium D, yes. But I have 8GB of DDR3 in it because I am using a Dell XPS 430 M/B and case. The comp looks very different from the outside(You can see that in my profile pic) but on the inside, it is extremely similar to the Dimension 9100-9200(AKA XPS 400 and XPS 410 respectively). This is because they are actually in the same model series of Dells, and they all use the long-abandoned flop of Intel's BTX form factor, as apposed to the 17-year-old norm of ATX. After its proposal in 2003, BTX never really caught on, and by 2005 only a few OEMs were still using it. Dell was the last to let go of BTX, ceasing production of the last BTX-compliant PC, the XPS 430, in 2009. Really, you can see here the way in which our PCs are similar:

(2005)XPS 400(Originally sold as Dimension 9100)<-your main rig(the Dim. 9150 MB is the same as the Dim. 9100's)
(2006)XPS 410(Originally sold as Dimension 9200)
(2007)XPS 420
(2008)XPS 430<-my main rig

XPS 400-410 look identical, but XPS 420-430 are shiny and black on the outside, as can be seen in my profile pic. Because they are BTX, the motherboards are the same shape and fit easily in each other's cases(if the I/O shield is changed to allow for the different rear I/O). However, the chipsets, while using the same (P)LGA775 socket, are different in each PC:

XPS 400-Intel 945P chipset ( can do all pentium 4s[I believe] and most pentium Ds; up to 4GB DDR2-800)
XPS 410-Intel P965 chipset ( can do all pentium Ds[I believe] and some LGA775 pentium 4s; up to 4GB DDR2-800)
XPS 420-Intel X38 chipset( can only do Core 2 series 800-1333FSB and C2-based CPUs;
up to 8GB DDR2-1333[I believe])
XPS 430-Intel X48 chipset( can do ALL Core 2 series desktop CPUs with exception of the LGA771-socket QX9775, cannot do any pentium 4s or pentium Ds; up to 8GB DDR3-1600[however, in this iteration of the X48 chipset, the RAM speed is determined by the CPU. It is my belief that if, for example, some cheap DDR3-1066 were used with the QX9770, without adjusting anything to change the FSB, the RAM would be forced to run at 1600mhz and cause overheating and crash within seconds)

So, you can't really do 8GB RAM, but you CAN do most of the other stuff I did.