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XPS 8930, How I Fixed the Noise Issues
I recently bought a Dell XPS 8930 with an i7-8700 (not 8700k). When the CPU is under heavy load (i.e. around 100%) the case fan and the CPU cooler fan really ramp up and are very loud. When under heavy load the XPS 8930 is the noisiest computer that I have ever used. When you are not stressing the CPU though, it is pretty quiet.
I have found two solutions to this issue:
(1) Replace the CPU cooler with a more effective one - not easy but very effective
To me it seemed that the stock CPU cooler - which is quite a small unit - was struggling to keep the CPU cool when the CPU was running at 100%. The CPU temperature when at 100% for a period of time was typically in the high 80's Centigrade and peaked in the low 90's. The issue with the Dell case design is that there is only around 70mm of space from the top of the CPU to the side of the PSU. The stock CPU cooler and fan is 50mm high and has an 80mm wide fan. There are not many CPU coolers that will fit within 70mm and still have space for airflow. For example, one of the best "low profile" CPU coolers is the Raijintek Pallas. However, this is 68mm high. I wasn't confident that the fan would work very well if it had a flat surface just a couple of millimeters above it. In the end the fan that I found that did fit and was effective was a Scythe Big Shuriken 2.
This unit is 58mm high including the fan - so still has 12mm/ half an inch of clearance. This CPU cooler is much larger with a 120mm fan vs the 80mm fan of the stock cooler. (So the surface area of the fan and heat sink cooler is more than twice that of the stock cooler.) The design also ensures that the heatsink clears the capacitors/resisters and memory banks that are close to the CPU. This CPU cooler doesn't seem to have to work very hard to keep the CPU cool even when the CPU usage is 100%. Under load my maximum CPU temperatures are about 5C lower than they were before and the fan noise from the Big Shuriken 2 is very low. Keeping the CPU cooler seems to mean that the case fan doesn't have to ramp up as much so that is much quieter too. I notice that the Big Shuriken also seems to have extra cooling capacity. Occasionally when the temperatures are high you will hear the CPU cooler fan ramping up a bit (though still much quieter than the stock cooler) and in a few seconds the temperature will fall from being in the 80's to being in the 60's and the CPU fan will slow down again. The stock cooler on the other hand simply seems to have to work at 100% all the time when the CPU is under load.
Changing the CPU Cooler isn't for the faint hearted.
Socket Clamp Backplate Issue - The CPU is held in place with a socket clamp - normally this screws into a backplate on the underside of the motherboard like this - it is the plate with three screws in it.
All CPU coolers are held in place with another back plate that also fits under the motherboard and usually goes over the top of the CPU socket backplate. This is what the screws from the CPU cooler fit into. Motherboards have holes for these screws to pass through.
Unfortunately Dell use a single back plate that has screw holes for both the CPU socket clamp and the heat sink. This is unusual and stops you using the back plate that comes with the CPU cooler.
You can replace the Dell combined backplate with a normal CPU socket clamp bacck plate and then use the CPU cooler backplate. This is what I did - I bought a brocken 1151 motherboard for £15 and took the (normal) socket clamp back plate off of that. (I could not find anywhere that sold just a socket clamp back plate - or even a whole socket clamp assembly.
Alternatively you could try resusing the Dell combined backlate instead of the CPU cooler backplate. However, I found that the existing screw holes in the dell back plate where the stock CPU cooler screws into were too small. You can get around this by knocking the screw holes out of the backplate with a hole punch but i didnt want to do that.
So for me step 1 was to get a socket 1151 CPU clamp backplate.
Then you can unplug everything from the motherboard. Before you do this take a few pictures of all the cables in place just in case you cnanot remember where they go.
Remove the screws holding in the motherboard (7 of these I think) and remove the motherboard from the case. This is a pain because the case has absolutely no spare space around the motherboard and you have to get it to an angle to get it out so that the USB sockets etc dont catch on the case. I really wish that Dell had made the case just a quarter of an inch bigger all the way around the motherboard.
Take off the existing CPU cooler and the socket clamp so that you can remove Dell's combined back plate. Put the CPU somewhere safe. Put the socket clamp back on using your new socket backplate. Put the CPU back in. Then fit the new CPU cooler - making sure that you clean off the old thermal paste and use some new good quality paste. It really helps if you have a spare set of hands while attaching the CPU cooler - it would be really hard to hold the cooler in place on the CPU and screw it into place from the underside of the motherboard otherwise.
Then put it all back together and you should have a nice and quiet PC.
I did have one moment of panic after I put it all back together - as the system would not power up! I could not see any cables that were not back in the right place. Going back tothe photos showed me that I had missed a small cable that appeared to be for the power button. It had been pushed out of the way when trying to get the motherboard back in the case and was small enough to be hidden by other cables.
(2) Reduce the Maximum CPU frequency - easy to do and effective
More details on this option are here:
Reducing CPU Maximum Frequency
Personally I found that a setting of 3900MHz made the XPS 8930 pretty quiet while having no significant impact on performance. In practice this isn't very surprising. In theory the i7-8700 can go up to 4600MHz with Turbo Boost. However, with longer running tasks the maximum CPU frequency rarely goes above 4000MHz.
Some people have recommended reducing the CPU Maximum State (in power settings) instead. Do NOT do this. If you set this to even 99% you will lose about 25% of your maximum CPU performance. I tested ripping a 2 minute section of a blu-ray. With Max CPU State at 100% it took 60 seconds - with a setting of 99% it took 76 seconds. This big change in performance is because even a setting of 99% disables all turbo boosting of the CPU so the maximum CPU frequency falls from 4.6GHz to 3.2GHz. On the plus side though - if you are willing to take this significant hit in performance then your PC will be very quiet.
LittleBear84
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July 8th, 2018 12:00
Many thanks, HanoverB! Yeah, perhaps I should wait. I did try to replace the stock cooler by the Noctual NH-L9i. But because of the combined Dell backplate, it did not work; Noctua's IBT4 mounting screws are too short. I checked with Noctua and they said the stock plate that holds the heat sink needs to be removed (as also instructed in the NH-L9i's manual).
But I am still worried about that CPU clamp backplate; I am not sure if I will be able to get the right one from another 1151 motherboard. I hope I will get more details from ghooper. Or perhaps when the warranty expires (in 2 months), I will try to separate the combined Dell backplate so that I am able to just use the inner part (the plate with three screws) together with the NH-L9i.
I did try the Intel CPU stress test with the current setup for about 15 minutes, and 75oC is the maximum I got. At idle, the CPU temperature is around 38oC. The numbers seem reasonable. And my XPS 8920 is almost silent under regular use (MS Word, Web, Movie etc).
Thanks again.
HanoverB
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July 8th, 2018 16:00
If 75 C is the max temp under load and the noise is under control then there is likely nothing else you need to do on your XPS 8920. I'm thinking if you wanted to game and added a 1070/1080 Founder's type card with a rear exhaust you would still be okay. Good work. It's the beast i7 8700 in the XPS 8930 that's difficult to manage.
HanoverB
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July 8th, 2018 23:00
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aleg123
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July 9th, 2018 09:00
I was able to switch the stock CPU cooler for another low profile cooler, without having to remove the motherboard:
https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/New-low-profile-CPU-cooler-on-XPS-8930-i7-8700/m-p/6108419#M13409
546insp
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July 9th, 2018 14:00
L B 84 Did you put those front fans under the top/front HDD bay are where does the power come from for them?
LittleBear84
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July 9th, 2018 19:00
546insp:
Yes, they are in front, both in-take. Please see the pic below:
As you also might notice from the picture, I have another Noctua (this one is 92mm) that works as an exhaust fan. I dont play games, so there is no need for a big discrete graphic card at that location:).
In total, I use five Noctua fans: three 120mm (2 up front, and 1 as a top fan), one 92mm, and one 80mm (CPU cooler). Power comes from the chassis-fan connector (for three 120mm fans) and processor-fan connector (for 92mm and 80mm fans) using the y-cable (NA-YC1) supplied by Noctua.
Thanks!
LittleBear84
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July 9th, 2018 19:00
aleg123:
Thanks. The ARCTIC Freezer 11 LP also came to my attention. But it is a push-pin cooler. Did you just use the M3 screws instead of the pins?
LittleBear84
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July 12th, 2018 19:00
I got a 1151 CPU clamp back plate from an used Gigabyte motherboard, and decided to change the CPU stock cooler to Noctua NH 9Li. Below are the two pics (before and after). But I don't see much improvement at idle:).
aleg123
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July 13th, 2018 04:00
Yes, just used standard M3 screws (abou 8mm length) and it worked. Highly recomend it.
Vic384
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July 14th, 2018 06:00
LittleBear84, I am curious, how are the front fans mounted (secured to the chassis)? It is difficult to tell from the picture. Thanks.
AB111
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July 21st, 2018 13:00
Hello,
Thanks for the infos on this topic!
Any thoughts on something like the SHADOW ROCK LP by Bequiet? This cooler seems to come with a set of screws that may fit in the initial backplate. I'm looking for a solution without having to remove the backplate, I'm not sure that the height of this one is short enough. But these king of screws give hope to more options ;) (just need to dig a little more).
More infos:
https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/570
I'm also curious about any infos about liquid cooling, did anyone succeeded with this? I think we still got places to manage the exhaust.
The documentation of dell can give us some clues: https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/ca/en/cadhs1/xps-8930-desktop/xps-8930-service-manual/procedure?guid=guid-432d095e-7e12-4059-809e-c9cbbf1c4bd7&lang=en-us
If I manage something on my own I'll post it there.
546insp
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July 21st, 2018 15:00
I'm not seeing much if any gain here. I see those two 120mm front fans are mounted solid at the bottoms which would radiate sound through the metal structure, also there is a huge gap between them and the front mesh screen so the hot air is making a U turn and going back through the fans instead of pulling air from the vertical front/side vents. Look for a post with pics on my new front fan installation when is gets here. Noctua might be a little better but there is no silver bullet when it comes to fans.
HanoverB
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July 21st, 2018 19:00
What? There is certainly a gain in the introduction of airflow by adding the front fans and another exhaust fan below the GPU in a case like this with restricted airflow.
The issue is managing the temps from the CPU. Introducing front intake fans may give you 3-5 degree drop in overall case temps but it's not going to solve the problem with the CPU and stock cooler.
There are several ways to add a front fan, you can certainly add an Alienware fan in the lower front that would just snap into place (take a look on the chassis where the lock points are), you can use brackets, or the existing screw holes in the front of the chassis. It's not difficult.
I think it's great that the pictures show the various locations that the fans can be placed in the case.
546insp
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July 21st, 2018 21:00
I didn't see that rear fan until you mentioned it and it's probably the best addition in there except for you can't use a video card or the rear/bottom HDD cage with it in there and the upper front one eliminates that HDD bay also. The way the front ones are mounted they are just blowing hot air around and not taking advantage of the front vents at all. Not to mention there is no provision for vibration noises anywhere. When I put my 120mm fan in the front next week I will wait and see how much it helps and if needed I will try mounting my rear slot fan again another way. It was advertised "whisper quiet" but was actually loud.
HanoverB
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July 21st, 2018 23:00
I think all you would need to do would be to add the front fan. The one at the bottom front would be the most desired as it would move some air from low to high, but more more importantly, to the GPU location and the lower HD location. The one in the front upper HD location would be optional, it would help with case temps, but all you are trying to do is create some airflow with at least one intake fan. Ideal fan for the front intake would be a large, slow moving fan that can move a large volume of air.
Having the front fan slightly back from the lower front chassis is still going to pull in cooler air and if you use the right adhesive such as 3M extreme adhesive tape (rated to 80-90 C) it would act as a noise/vibration buffer, but I would prefer having it more secure rather than adhesive.
The rear fan he has in his case does block the GPU slot so for any power user/gamer it wouldn't be practical. I haven't seen a slot fan that you mentioned that wasn't noisy.
DanH recommended removing the bottom slot covers in previous XPS lines and would think that would be helpful here.