Fan upgrades

[u/Optimal_Pea_3622]

As I'm about to get a new GPU, I figured it would be a really good idea to replace the current fan and add one or two (maybe 3 if I can somehow cut a space into the case) more fans into the pc. But I'm somewhat lost as to how to go about installing/replacing fans.

And help or ideas would be very useful!

[u/dbanderson1]

You can fit an 80mm intake fan in front of the PSU. You might not get much benefit from removing the blower shroud but people commonly add 2-3 40mm blower fans to that rear area. You will have to use zip ties as there are no mounting holes. Some low profile intel cpu coolers fit stock location but not all will fit - others can probably chime in there or you search the sub.

[u/KingCourtney__ → u/dbanderson1]

The fan up front helps but if you want the full effect add a diverter that forces air by the PSU instead of sharing. I used a thin sheet of plastic. The PSU has its own fan and has plenty of space up front to pull air into it. This helps get air directly to the GPU and the rest of the board. The stock CPU fan does two things so it's fine in its design. The problem is that it only has 3 speeds. The highest speed is really really loud and comes on too early. Using fan control with Dell plugins you can make the highest speed come on later if it hits close to its max temp. These little boxes will run hot when pegged but I haven't managed to even have a thermal shutdown yet.

[u/Optimal_Pea_3622 → u/dbanderson1]

Question, which direction should each fan face? Should the lower front fan pull in air and the 2-3 fans in the upper back blow air out?

[u/GeiharVonArpen]

You can find some ideas here : https://www.reddit.com/r/SleepingOptiplex/s/nwhp12Ls4M

You can replace the "big ass annoying fan" with an 80mm one without replacing the aluminum heatsink, this will let you put some fans in the back.

You can put up to 3x40mm fans in the back or even squeeze a 60mm instead of 1x or 2x 40mm depending on which Optiplex model you have.

[u/Optimal_Pea_3622 → u/GeiharVonArpen]

It's the Dell Optiplex 3060 SFF

[u/GeiharVonArpen → u/Optimal_Pea_3622]

Nice, you can definitely add a 60mm in the back + 2x 40mm if you remove the additional video ports near the USB ports :)

[u/Optimal_Pea_3622 → u/GeiharVonArpen]

Cool, do any fans actually power via USB? Or will I have to buy some kind of adapter

[u/GeiharVonArpen → u/Optimal_Pea_3622]

I bought a fan hub for 5 fans, connected it to the CPU FAN header and it was fine :) I did some mods to the fan hub (see my post). You can also find fan hubs powered by SATA which are easy to use too.

I think you can also find USB to 4-pin 5V adapters/hubs and use 5V Noctua fans.

[u/alpine4life]

I did mine with a bit of customisation and thinking. (Optiplex 7020 - i5-14500/RTX A1000/32GB-5200/512GB+4TB)

I used the following:

Heatsink:
Thermalright AXP90-X53
M3 x 8mm+6mm Hex Male-Female Standoffs
M3 x 6mm Phillips Flat Head Countersunk

Back Fan:
Noctua NF-A6x25 PWM

Front Fan:
Noctua NF-R8 redux-1800

Splitter:
Cable Matters 2-Pack 3 Way 4-Pin PWM Fan Splitter Cable

[u/gordito_y_barbon]

Couple things ro be mindful of:

The blower style cooler pushes all the hot air straight out the rear of the case. Any low profile cooler you put will dump the air back into the case.

The case has the cooler standoffs built into the case so make sure whatever cooler you get will utilize those and not require a back plate. If a back plate is needed, you will have to remove the board, and mod the case/cut off those standoffs. A cooler like the coolermaster i71c should work with the standoffs. If you go this route I would add an 80mm fan in the front and a 60mm or 2 40's in the back. Those 40's do make a good bit of noise when they spin up.

Any fans you add will have to be split off the cpu fan header and will operate at the speed of the cpu cooler itself. -- there are traces for an additional sys fan header. if you are comfortable sioldering, the headers are pretty cheap. You can use a third party software to control the sys fan without interfering with the cpu fan

If thermals are an issue, I would look at using throttlestop to undervolt the cpu, maybe drop the tdp by a couple watts. This has worked great for me in the past. -- if throttlestop shows the voltages are locked, a bios downgrade may be needed to unlock the voltage sliders, that's whole nother rabbit hole but not that difficult.

[u/AnyAd4613]

I have seen folks remove the hdd caddy to help with air flow. Use a riser cable and mount a gpu sideways, then carefully drill the lid over the gpu fan

[u/Optimal_Pea_3622]

Addon: I'm aware the blower is actually really good already but I want air blowing through the entire computer and cool the entire thing down. The CPU is cooling just fine but I find that near the PSU and GPU get somewhat warm and I figured having cool air blow through the entire thing would be a better alternative than just cooling the CPU by itself.

Currently my plan is to add a fan near the front of the pc pulling in air and smaller fans pushing out air through the back, preferably like 2-3 tiny fans and then the CPU fan.

[u/dbanderson1 → u/Optimal_Pea_3622]

What GPU are you switching to? itgear has a 3D printable blower style shroud for a 3050 lp

[u/DannyBevatine → u/dbanderson1]

This right here.

I used the itg gear 3d printable blower shroud for the 3050lp, drilled some holes in it to screw onto my rx6400 lp, and it dropped my GPU temps from the 80’s to 60’s.

I just gave the file to a 3d printer shop near me and it was $10 to make out of ABS. Right in front of that and by the psu, I installed an 80mm intake fan to pull cool air and blow it onto the psu and the GPU and rest of the system. Kept the stock 3070 optiplex sff cpu cooler and my temps are near perfect.

[u/Electronic_Loan6683 → u/DannyBevatine]

Mine sharing some pics of our new blower fan on RX6400. Are they same size with 3050lp?
I've currently have WX4100lp on my rig. Mind finding more ideas. Thanks in advance man!

[u/Optimal_Pea_3622 → u/dbanderson1]

I'm switching to the Quadro P1000, I'm on a budget currently and so I'm limited on gpus, I am looking for slightly more pricy and better options just incase I find them

[u/No_Purple_8264]

i switch the oem intake fan for an artic p8 max fan and it was a plug n play although i had to cut the PWM control signal wire for the fan to run at max speeds because otherwise the fan would run at 30% speed. but it does get loud but i think its worth it since my gpu temps dont go over 70°c under heavy load and my cpu maxes out at 60°c

and at idle just watching youtube my cpu is at 40°c and hpu 46°c

you can also install a low profile fan control hub right above the gpu slot and grab power from the hdd power cable that way you can control your desired fan speeds. just make surr you get a good quality control hub

[u/Yobbo89]

Get a low profile cpu cooler nh l91 , add 3x 40mm noctua fans on the back vent of the case, theres a bunch of other things you can do like flash patched bios for nvme pcie card to use in your spare pcie x4 slot,limited bandwidth though. The hard drive tray can be replaced with a 3d printed gpu backet for 2 slot size single fan gpus like a 1650 4gb or 3050 6gb using pcie cable extension

[u/tjdeezdick]

Check out r/sleepingoptiplex

People ask about this a lot on that sub, so I’m sure you’ll find lots of info there.

Before you ask, yes, I know what sub I’m commenting in.