Friends, countrymen, compatriots,

I am now the (proud?) owner of 1 used (up?) Dell Optiplex GX110, with a coppermine PIII, 256 megs of ram and a 10 gig hard drive. It took 3 hours of fiddling to get Ubuntu's X server to agree that the Intel i810 chipset uses 4 megs of ram, and that this would allow 1024x768 resolution. But, now that that's taken care of (and I can read & post to these forums - 640 x 480 is not internet friendly), I need to do something about the rear case exhaust fan.

It appears to be an 80mm JMC Datec 0825-12HBTL. I don't know if this fan is just fast, just loud, or just sucks. Well,actually it's certainly loud and it certainly sucks.

Does anyone else here have an old dell? My optiplex has a 3-wire fan lead, but they don't seem to be wired normally. I am totally prepared to re-wire and re-fan. This thread over at dell's own forums looks promising:

Rewiring Dell's proprietary fan leads, click here!

Does anyone have any experience with this? It'd be nice to know before I start cutting...

Jay

breakdown of the model #: 8cm diametre, 25mm thick, 12 volt, high speed, ball bearing, thermal control. yup, it'd be loud. try the mod on the dell forum with a sacrificial 3pin fan first.

Thanks Chris,

I'm thinking about just cutting the dell wires and crimping on some quick diconnects or a 4-pin molex to make a universal adapter. Or just skipping this header all together and running the fan @ 5v (or 2 in series @ 6v) from the psu.

The only sacrificial fan I have is the Dell, and I am perfectly willing to sacrifice it.

If this fan is thermally controlled, and assuming it's operating properly, I'd hate to hear it at full speed.

Let us know how things go. The problem with using a high speed fan to start with is that it will have a minimum starting and running voltage, so running it on minimum might still end up being loud. Good luck.

Yeah, it may be that it is just easier to run a fan directly from the PSU. Unfortunately, that fan has a locked-rotor-protection wire from what i understand from reading the dell forum thread, so your computer may not start if it doesn't detect a fan connected to the header. It probably will, though, judging from my experience with a <s>Dimentia</s> Dimension 4100 at my school.