Dell Desktops

[bigj3347]

I don't know about teh new Dell desktops but they're old beige towers are REALLY quiet. Really can't hear anything except for the occasional hdd spinnng sound which is also relatively quiet. Anyone know how they do it?

 

[amol]

proprietary parts and underclocking

 

[Dough1397]

my beiger case dell p3 550 with 6 gig maxtor hd drive is pretty loud

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Two fans, some cases one.

- M4H

 

[thirdlegstump]

Great design and engineering. Simple as that.

 

[ohnnyj]

We have a number of them at work and they are the some of the newer models, and yes I was wondering the same thing, they are exceptionally quite. Kind of like some of Apple's computers as they don't want to take away from the computing experience with a loud computer (the Dual G5 is even watercooled to make it even quiter). I think Sony released a watercooled HTPC recently as well. A lot of companies are going this route as they realize that more and more consumers are becoming sensitive to the din that these things can put out. They had a huge article about this over at cnet.com.

 

[moonzkeen]

i have a 3 1/2 year old dell dimension 4100...if you open the case you can actually see that there is a hmmm well "ventilation shaft", if you will, coming directly from the processor out to the back of the computer, the heat sink/fan is incased in this "shaft", and thats probably what is making it quiet. you also have to take in consideration that i only have one hard drive spiinning at 5200 rpm and only one cd-rw drive and only 2 case fans so theres not too many things making noise...

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: moonzkeen
i have a 3 1/2 year old dell dimension 4100...if you open the case you can actually see that there is a hmmm well "ventilation shaft", if you will, coming directly from the processor out to the back of the computer, the heat sink/fan is incased in this "shaft", and thats probably what is making it quiet. you also have to take in consideration that i only have one hard drive spiinning at 5200 rpm and only one cd-rw drive and only 2 case fans so theres not too many things making noise...

Shaft? SHAFT?

It's a duct.

- M4H

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Great design and engineering. Simple as that.

:thumbsup:

Their cases are designed for vibration dampening and sound isolation.

 

[Jarwa]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Great design and engineering. Simple as that.

Yep!!

 

[ai42]

Ok I've been dealing with Dell's for quite a long time. For the Dell 2350/2400/3000/4550/4600/4700 Dimenson boxes you have a only 2 fans. You have the PSU fan of course. And you have a single rather large 92mm fan that is ducted to suck air across the CPU heatsync. The fan is temperature controlled of course to boot. (Not including any video card fans).

 

[StrangerGuy]

I have used a Dimension 3000 and its pretty quiet...Until the DVD drive starts to spin and it gets real loud.

 

[imverygifted]

not overclocked, good airflow, low rpm fans

 

[zakee00]

my friends' dell sounds like a freight train...not to mention he had video artifacts all the time. he didnt rma it though, hes an idiot. the monitor also makes high pitched squeels at low reolutions (?). i am never going to buy anything dell ever.

 

[TimothyX]

some of their cases lock up pretty tight. i put a therm in a buddy's dell and it was like 115 F. sure was quiet though. underclocking helps as well as using pentium4 so you wont fry chip.

 

[mauiblue]

My Dell Dimension XPS R400 is whisper quiet and still going strong (knock on wood ) after six years. I gave it new life early last year with a CPU upgrade from PowerLeap (1.2 GHz) and a new Western Drive. I also upgraded the OS (Win XP Home).

 

[exodus454]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
Great design and engineering. Simple as that.

are we talking about the same Dell here?

 

[quakefiend420]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire

Originally posted by: moonzkeen
i have a 3 1/2 year old dell dimension 4100...if you open the case you can actually see that there is a hmmm well "ventilation shaft", if you will, coming directly from the processor out to the back of the computer, the heat sink/fan is incased in this "shaft", and thats probably what is making it quiet. you also have to take in consideration that i only have one hard drive spiinning at 5200 rpm and only one cd-rw drive and only 2 case fans so theres not too many things making noise...

Shaft? SHAFT?

It's a duct.

- M4H

he just likes to say "shaft"

 

[bigj3347]

I just opened the case up and saw that same heat duct from the heatsink to the rear of the case . . . if that is the main reason why it is so quiet . . why isn't becoming more mainstream for and available? I can't imagine it being too hard to manurfacture. On the other hand, if the rear fan is only dissipating heat from the processor and heatsink due to the duct . . .it won't be able to exhaust air from the other computer parts. what gives?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: bigj3347
I just opened the case up and saw that same heat duct from the heatsink to the rear of the case . . . if that is the main reason why it is so quiet . . why isn't becoming more mainstream for and available? I can't imagine it being too hard to manurfacture.

Actually, that's pretty much what Intel's new BTX case standard does. It doesn't fit standard ATX motherboards (as you might imagine), and so requires everything to be redesigned. Motherboard and case manufacturers are opposed to it pretty strongly.

On the other hand, if the rear fan is only dissipating heat from the processor and heatsink due to the duct . . .it won't be able to exhaust air from the other computer parts. what gives?

WHAT other parts? The CPU in your typical Dell box is putting out more heat than the (slow) HD, (slow, limited) RAM, (slow) integrated graphics, and optical drive put together.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
I have used a Dimension 3000 and its pretty quiet...Until the DVD drive starts to spin and it gets real loud.

The Dimension 3000 has only one system fan. Dell keeps noise to a minimum by using one fan to serve the purpose of both cooling the passive heatsink and moveing air throught the chasis. BTX operates in a similar manner by covering the CPU with shroud that is connected to a chasis fan.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
I have used a Dimension 3000 and its pretty quiet...Until the DVD drive starts to spin and it gets real loud.

The Dimension 3000 has only one system fan. Dell keeps noise to a minimum by using one fan to serve the purpose of both cooling the passive heatsink and moveing air throught the chasis. BTX operates in a similar manner by covering the CPU with shroud that is connected to a chasis fan.

These are similar to what you find in a dell system, Use the chasis exhaust to suck air through the cpu cooler.

http://www.frozencpu.com/duc-16.html?id=Ca8jbaXA

 

[imported_Silo]

Leave it to the Western Digital HD to be the noisy. ;p

 

[moonsite]

My Dell SC400 was superquiet until I add in a GeForce 5700 card that has a fan on it.

 

[joecool]

Originally posted by: imverygifted
not overclocked, good airflow, low rpm fans

add to that air ducts to concentrate airflow on high temp parts, and BIG fans. i'm not a dell fan, but their engineering is pretty darn good.