Dell PC 530 is the noisiest ever, any advice?

WELCOME TO SPCR!



Avoid all OEMs like the plague, and build your own.

That said pretty much any OEM can be silenced by eliminating the offending noise making components and utilizing the silencing information on this site.

>PSU swap or just a PSU fan swap
> Swap to a SPCR recommended heatsink with fan if needed, depending on CPU thermals.
> HDD suspended/decoupled from case and/or swap to SSD or recommended HDD. (and)
>Swap case fans and/or reduce fan speed(s).
>Undervolt/ underclock.
>Case dampening materials

Dell's are good or bad depending on how you look at it. They actually incorporate some of the same silencing tactics that we at SPCR use. Rubber grommets for hard drives, large tower heat sinks, big fans, efficient PSUs. But they never seem to quite get it all together. I think their biggest downfall is their fan choices. Seems most of the fans I hear in Dell PCs have terrible clicking going on. It seems they like to over-build and use ultra-high speed fans and then they slow them way down but it's just not enough. Can't blame them too much because they want to take into account the people who will never clean out their PC to the point where the fan will need to spin that fast to overcome the heat build-up from the dust.

Of course they also build crap OEM PCs too. I'm assuming the 530 you mention is the Inspiron 530, not the Precision. The Inspiron/Vostro ones specifically look very OEM with stock heat sinks and crap PSUs. The Precision/Optiplex generally seem to be built to a higher standard. Although they do then also tend to use some non-standard parts which makes swapping them for better alternatives difficult.

In my experiences of working around Dell desktops, there are several different models that are very quiet, and others brutally loud. Here are some of my observations:

Dell Dimension 4300/4400: Brutally loud motor noise even with the 92mm exhaust fan running at 1,100rpm
Dell Dimension 2350: Fan speeds up over 2,000rpm at the slightest hint of heat
Dell Dimension 2400: Seems as though the best fans end up in this model. Far superior in quietness to just about every other ATX-based Dimension.
Dell Dimension 4700/8400: They aren't horrible, but again, loud motors don't help here.
Dell XPS 200: It doesn't take much to send it's front-mounted 80mm fan over 4,000rpm, especially when it's struggling to cool a toasty Pentium D.
Dell XPS 600 (nForce 4 SLI): 3.8GHz P4 cooling done right. 120mm fan doesn't exceed 1,500rpm even in a hot garage. Heatsink barely warm to the touch. Very quiet.
All Dell Inspiron desktops: Yeah, they'll max out the fans for a split second during POST, but otherwise excellent for a Dell in almost any condition.

For workstations, we use Dell Optiplexes exclusively at work these days. We have a bunch of Optiplex 745 tower and "small desktop" systems that we buy refurbished from Dell Financial Services (www.dfsdirectsales.com). They come with 90-day warranties and are a terrific deal for anyone in need of a cheap basic PC. I've been buying them for family lately as well. It's one of the cheapest remaining ways to get Windows XP (with media). DFS often has 20-30% off coupons somewhere online, so you can get a C2D / 2GB / WinXP Optiplex for around $200. That's unbeatable for a work environment. They are actually pretty quiet. They're BTX-ish, and have 80mm intake fans. I've never hear any of their fans ramp up, but ambient noise in my office is pretty high.

We just bought a Dell server (T310), and it's intake fan is insanely loud. It's very eager to ramp up. Thank goodness it's in my boss's office!

Hi, I'm currently trying to quieten my Dell XPS 600.

Here's the post: http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=58784

Main source of noise is the PSU I think though I can't see how to open up the bottom of the system which contains the PSU.[/url]