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XPS 8930, Case swap to Define C Mid
I recently decided to swap my 8930 case due to overheating issues and thanks to HanoverB I was able to pull it off for the most part. I started by buying a Fractal Design Define Mini C TG. (edit: Define C not mini) I then made the decision to go air cooling and because my cpu temps were running over 95* Celsius in some games I wanted to go all out on the cpu cooler. I researched it and the two choices for me was the Noctua DH-15 or the Dark Rock Pro 4. The Noctua is butt ugly so I went with the Dark Rock Pro 4 which is a thing of beauty. Since I don't really do lights but had the glass I wanted it to look good and work good. I had a Rosewill Hive 750S power supply already from a previous build. So I got to work taking everything out of the 8930 case and installing it into the Define Mini. I was a little concerned about the size of the Dark Rock Pro 4 but it fit nicely. An interesting path I took was to take a chance on the Graphite Thermal pad in place of thermal paste. I was skeptical but thought I would give it a shot and it turned out to be a great choice. (Try it) My build consist of the aforementioned power supply, the 9th generation Intel i7-9700k cpu, Nvidia GTX 1070 gpu with 8gb , M.2 512gb PCIe x4 SSD + 2TB 7200 rpm Hard Drive, 32GB of DDR4, 2666MHz ram, 2ea 140mm Fractal Design case fans in the front, one 120mm Fractal Design case fan in the rear, the 120mm and 135mm fans on the Dark Rock plus the fan in the power supply. No top fans at all and I did not remove the case top to put the supplied mesh on the top as I like the solid look. So how did it do is the million dollar question. I was running mid to upper 80s C in many games with the worst being Far Cry 5 on High but not Ultra settings and running mid to upper 90s C consistently (still in the 90's on lower settings) with Dell blaming everything else in their arrogant condescending ways. After doing the case swap I played Far Cry 5 on high settings for more than an hour and it NEVER went over 76* Celsius. Whoop whoop!! 20 degrees difference :Smile: At idle it runs under 30* Celsius. The Gpu still runs at 83* Celsius max but I am not too concerned with that and feel like an adjustment of the fan curve will bring that down. (the fan on gpu does not ever run over like 57%) I am fairly satisfied with the noise level but wish it was silent so when I do voice overs it would not be heard but with those temps I am not complaining. :) I originally installed the power supply facing up to help draw the air flow from front to rear in the bottom past the gpu but I realized it is the loudest fan in the build and it really did not seem to make a temp difference so I turned it over to draw from the bottom. This case and build has a very cool air flow through it that you can clearly feel when you put your hand inside. :) I am very happy with the case and the build so far but have a couple issues to work out. The 3.0 USB on the front of the case is not working (will try to figure that out) and the power button has issues. Works but gives an error that you can continue past. (will work on that) Too bad Dell chooses to knowingly sell people near $2000 computers that by design run hot and then deny the problem and blame everything else. What an arrogant bunch of techs (many other names come to mind here) they have working for them. TERRIBLE. Enjoy the pics. Sorry they are not in order and that I did not get a pic of the Dark Rock prior to install :Huh?:
Edited 4/19/19
I figured out why the front USB on new case was not working. I had plugged it into the blue socket on motherboard instead of the black. Swapped it to the black socket and the 2 USB 3.0's on the front panel work great.
the Define Mini C
Dell motherboard
Sorry Dell heat-sink and blower fan
Dark Rock Pro 4
546insp
732 Posts
0
April 15th, 2019 21:00
That's pretty sad that you had to go all through that just because Dell messed up their latest PC's. It always amazes me when a big company makes a big mistake. I buy a new XPS Dell every 4 years but I will have to look into what they have more next time before buying anything.
RLP63
11 Posts
1
April 16th, 2019 17:00
I will never buy again. Building my own from now on. Just have to buy the parts one at a time to do it and over a 6 month or longer period.
HanoverB
798 Posts
0
April 16th, 2019 19:00
Looks nice. Define case is very similar to the Meshify, same case swap build.
You need to do the workarounds to get rid of the front panel IO error and power switch startup errors.
Bring the IO Panel into the case from the XPS 8930
Read the info here for your case swap:
https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-Case-Swap-CPU-Liquid-Cooler-Temps-Upgrade-Summary/m-p/7284394/highlight/true#M23824
RLP63
11 Posts
0
April 19th, 2019 07:00
I am able to go right past the error at start up simply by clicking continue. Would I like to get rid of error? Sure but if we are talking about having the front I/O panel dangling inside my case to do it I am not interested. What harm is there in continuing past the error page? I guess I could take those individual pieces and put them behind my Fractal front maybe even cut a hole in front to allow SD reader to be usable but I am not sure any of that is worth it just to eliminate an error that is easy to go past and doesn't appear to cause any failure to operate. What say you?
RLP63
11 Posts
0
April 19th, 2019 14:00
I took the I/O front panel apart, fairly easy to do. Interesting thing is the blue plug for 3.0 USB C port is actually connected to one of the regular 3.0 USB ports also. The C port actually has a circuit board attached while the other USB port running on the same blue plug does not. So the black plug has 2 USB ports while the blue plug does too. 1 regular USB port and the C port with a circuit board inline.
Anonymous
5 Practitioner
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274.2K Posts
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April 19th, 2019 15:00
Very nice build. Looks great and runs cool!
AlienBlaster
20 Posts
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April 19th, 2019 18:00
Hi RLP63. Just saw your message from the other day. Good swap and glad to see another fellow taking the same path. Nice job.
A few observations:
1. This is not a Define Mini C but a Define C, an ATX mid tower. A Define Mini C is the same size as a Meshify C Mini, and is slightly shorter than a Define C or a Meshify C. All of these should work for a 8930 case swap.
2. Although the CPU temp is much better than original, I think it's still a bit high. The Dark Rock Pro 4 is a high end air cooler and you should get better results even if you overclocked (you probably don't). I think the reason is likely because you connect it to the CPU fan header and run it with PWM so the fan is at low RPM. I would recommend you fix it (e.g. by connecting it to the PSU directly, and one of the case fans to CPU header). The max noise is only 24.3 db and it should still be fairly quiet. Another thing to try is to apply a better thermal paste such as MX4.
3. I think you should upgrade your GPU. Your 1070 coming with the 8930 is a blower. Although it better fits the original case, it's going to be unnecessarily noisy and hot in a large case with better air flow like yours. You obviously throttle at 83C so there is a lot of room to improve. I also think it's not a good match for a 9700k if your primary usage is for gaming. I would recommend you sell it and upgrade to something like a GTX 2080 or 2070. I would always aim to run it at below 70C with as low noise as possible.
Anonymous
5 Practitioner
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274.2K Posts
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April 19th, 2019 20:00
I also have an observation:
I recommend that you clean some of the junk off your desk and move that beautiful PC to the top, where it can be appreciated for the piece of artwork that it is, rather than shoving it under the desk, where it occupies leg room. :Wink:
RLP63
11 Posts
0
April 20th, 2019 12:00
:BigSmile: Thanks for the compliment on the computer but my office / man cave is not about the computer. I was trying to find something small and plain when I bought the 8930 but got a POS case that was unable to cool this cpu. I run a business out of this space as well. :Wink:
RLP63
11 Posts
0
April 20th, 2019 12:00
You are right about it not being a mini which is very aggravating to me because I was intending to order the mini. It was not easy to keep all these cases straight and hard to find them readily available like I wanted. Now I am really disappointed because I wanted the smaller one. ( not sure the 1 1/2 inches in height is worth sending it back though :Huh?: )As far as the temps go they actually run much cooler on every thing I do except that the game Far Cry 5. I would be interested to hear what others run on that one particular game as I find that to be the ONLY game that runs that hot. I really don't game a lot but was testing it when I bought it to make sure everything was good. I play occasionally and have actually fully completed the campaign in Far Cry 5 and rarely to never go back and play and I am not an online gamer. What I do mostly is surf the net and create videos which it does cool as a cucumber and I want silence due to occasional voice recording and the mic picks up the slightest noises and would turn fan noise into an annoying hum. I will not be replacing the graphics card as I am still paying for this whole system. But later as in a couple years I would like to step up and I think this case will carry me for a few years at least. I also plan to stick with the thermal pad as I like it. Thanks for the input though. Bummer on the dang case. :Huh?:
hello_happy_world
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May 27th, 2019 14:00
wbnightwolf
1 Message
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October 18th, 2019 06:00
Hopefully anyone attempting to swap cases on the new XPS 8390 sees this. The Noctua D15 cooler will not work with the dell motherboard. Dell's stock backplate does not provide large enough holes for the required Noctua backplate. The Noctua backplate comes with threaded posts that installs directly over a stock backplate. The posts do not fit inside the holes of the Dell backplate.
I would suggest the Corsair H60 liquid cooler instead, and its abit cheaper.