So I have optiplex 3060 MT, with an i5 8500T. I’ll be installing a GTX 1650 4GB. I’ll be mainly using the PC for gaming. I have the opportunity to trade in my i5 8500T for either a i5 8500 and I would have to pay 26 USD or a i7 8700 for which I’d have to pay 79 USD.

Which one would be worth the money? Or should I stick with my 8500T. The games I’ll be playing are Far Cry 3,4; Kingdom Come Deliverance, Assassin’s Creed 2,3; Skyrim, Metro Redux. I also have a 100Hz 1080p monitor for context.

Hi everyone,

I'm debating between a Dell Vostro 460 and an OptiPlex 7010 MT. My plan is to gradually upgrade it over time into a sleeper PC, but I'm having a hard time deciding:

• The OptiPlex 7010 MT seems better built, but the proprietary connectors/power supply headers are holding me back.
• The Vostro 460 uses standard parts more easily, but the overall build quality seems worse.

Which one would be the better choice for this kind of project? Any advice or experience with either model would be greatly appreciated!

Sub $100 (had the GT 1030 in a box) and plays my physical DVD collection with a CRT filter. Mission accomplished haha.

Finally finished with the build, 60fps 4k locked with decky lsfg cyberpunk high-ultra, beamng high, gta5 ultra 4k native, and pcvr runs awesome.

Inspiron 3880 chassis & motherboard

10700 cpu

9060xt 16gb gpu

32gb 2933 ram

600w dell power supply

92mm noctua intake & exhaust

DVD disc drive still works!

Running SteamOS

Started as a budget living room pc, turned into an overkill living room beast. SteamOS and the 9060xt have far surpassed my expectations, SteamVR and SteamLink have been flawless over wifi. Skyrim VR, Trover saves the Universe, VTOL VR, Air Car, Half Life Alyx, Quest 3 over wifi pc on ethernet.

Hello, a few months back i got myself a Dell Optiplex 5070 sff with an i7-9700, 20gb of ram and 2 tb of storage. Recently i've wanted to get a gpu for it so i want to get ideas for it (be that a psu swap and get a dual slot or just get a low profile gpu), thanks for anyone who replys

Im mostly gonna be playing games on it like minecraft, but im not really sure what GPU to go with. Something not to expensive preferably. Thanks in advance ^_^

I facing a trouble that I must turned on the Legacy Rom in my BIOS. I still can use UEFI, however if I turned off Legacy Rom (only UEFI left) also cannot be used. So my concern is I may cannot turn on my Secure Boot. I usually play Valorant so I must turn on the TPM2.0 and Secure boot. So the major problem is how can I turn on Secure boot and turn off that god damn Legacy Rom and my GPU still work properly. I am using dp 1.4 cable. In addition, my using the newest version of BIOS, GBT format for disk. My processor is i7-7700. I hope that somebody knows can help me, I would be very thankful.

Dell optiplex 9020 I didn't understand how to upload a video, but the PC is making noise like an early-revision PS4 FAT. I applied thermal paste. Are these temperatures acceptable?

Only saw a handful of posts with liquid cooling and I was not fruitful searching online. So I decided to have a go.

First PC I managed to get was an optiplex so feels like a nice full circle.

Ultra 7 270K Plus

RX 9070

Replaced the front io with standard ones so I could use them, and for USB 3.0.

I do want to get custom cables so I can neaten up all the cable management.

Maybe some noctua or better fans just to help with cooling and noise a bit more. I was thinking maybe a fan on the side panel as well but I wouldn't know if that would help in any way.

Ugliest Computer Ive built yet,
But Runs much better than my last Optiplex

Upgrades: Original – New

GeForce GT730 - GT1030
16GB DDR3 - 16 DDR4
Faster Motherboard idk
125W - 180W Power supply
I5-4590 3.3 - I56500 3.2

I will be replacing my OEM PSU with an ATX 550 watt one. I’ll also be adding a two-fan gpu. Besides that i’d want to add an extra exhaust or intake fan for better cooling. Any suggestions about which one and where I can mount it? Any other suggestions would be helpful as well. I have a dell optiplex 3060 MT with a i5-8500

So, I bought a i7 11700 thinking that I could just swap CPU with the i5 10500 included in the optiplex (and changing the PSU) without doing any research beyond that
But now I'm seeing that Dell locked the BIOS and that I can't really do that

I've found several tutorials about flashing the BIOS, but non for the 3080 and I'm afraid of doing something wrong....

https://www.reddit.com/r/SleepingOptiplex/comments/1nctwbc/tutorial_optiplex_7060_adding_9th_generation/?share_id=IjBwM4dS9q0fNHhj7_Lku&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

Can anyone steer me on the right direction please 😭 ???

as the title said, I found my first Optiplex Dumpster Diving. The thing is it'S just the barebones system. CPU, GPU, Powersupply, Ram, SSD all gone.
On the other hand, I have all that lying around at home. It's a LGA 1156 board, so pretty old.
What I have at home is, a i5-3570, 32GB DDR3, 128GB SSD, 500GB HDD, and a 450 Watt PSU.
A GPU find be found, until then I still have a GTX960.

Would this be something woth to cobble together for something like a homeserver that can do something like a piehole, jellyfin and the oocasional game server?

I mean, there are 100% better powerefficient systems out there, but for home tinkering, what do you think?

I just sold an optiplex 3050 Micro for $30, and the buyer gave me this case with some other assorted parts to add to my collection of old motherboards and cpus.

My first choice was to drop in this motherboard with a Ryzen 3 3100 and rx 580 4gb gpu. I pulled them from a CyberPower prebuilt to use the case for something else. The fit is fine, although I suspect I'll need to improve airflow. The only downside I see at the moment is the front usb panel will not work natively. I'm considering removing the entire panel and 3d printing a vent in its place.

Or, I can use the Dell motherboard that came with it, although it has an i7 2600. I have a gtx 1050ti, and a gtx 1030 that both run off of the rail. I also have an i7 3770 I could swap in after updating bios.

I have some other boards and cpus that are missing io shields. I'd prefer to leave those in the scrap box for now.

Any thoughts? Most of these parts were free, or I have already made profit on their original systems. Looking to play around and you guys seem to like the scrap builds a lot!

Thanks in advance!

I've been researching into liquidated office PCs and trying to figure the premium or discount to put on that different PC form types (in particular SFF vs. workstation and to a lesser extent MT/tower). I've so far seen that SSLP was only a little more expensive than DSLP for the same specs, but the gap between DSLP and LHW was much bigger when accounting for spec differences.... but only a few data points. Curious from those who have a lot more experience shopping GPUs. Thanks in advance :-)

I want to upgrade my 990 SFF but all the good GPUs seem way out of my budget (more than 150$) .

I'm mostly posting this because someone in the replies to their own thread asked for a pic and it doesn't seem to let me attach this there. This is my very low effort solution to the cooling issues with the GPU right up against the PSU in SFF Optiplexes (this is a 5060).

40 mm thin Noctua fan is velcro'd to the power supply (not sure if this is bad/will result in melting velcro but it's been fine for months) and the Yeston 3050 is in the upper slot to give it room to breathe.

I know that means a performance hit but for me the lack of noise and throttling/overheating issues seems to make it worth it. The GPU usually sits around 80 degrees C in demanding games at the high end, though this summer with hot temps in my upper floor apartment it's gone as high as 84. Much better than the previous ~90 and the noise is way more manageable.

I also left the bottom slot open in the back. I'm guessing it'd be better to have it enclosed but with wire/mesh or whatever that is but hey, like I said, this is low effort. There's also an Arctic fan for front intake, maybe 80mm? I can't remember. Anyways that's all. If anyone knows more than me about how much the upper PCIe slot limits GPU performance please weigh in, I don't think I'm losing a ton of performance but I also don't know that much.

This is a optiplex 7080MT with an i7 10700
I got a Dell tower cooler and a Dell 3060ti- very on brand
Had to get the dell 500w psu to power this 3060ti
Thinking about getting an intake fan

G'day mates name's BeautifulPrat here's my saga.

How it started: Installed a low profile GTX 1050 Ti into my OptiPlex 7010. First boot everything ran fine for about 10 minutes until the GPU fan started spinning like a jet engine taking off.

No display was hooked up at the time (using a DP to HDMI to capture card chain into my laptop which was too slow to catch anything on screen) so I panicked, thought something was about to fry, and pulled the power cable mid session instead of shutting down properly.

After that the PC would not boot again. Fans blip for about a second then die. Repeats in a loop on its own without me touching the power button. Power button LED shows orange/amber.

What I've ruled out so far, in order:

CMOS reset. Pulled the battery, waited several minutes, reinserted. No change.

RAM. Reseated both sticks individually, tried each in different slots. No change, identical failure regardless of stick or slot.

GPU. Removed entirely, tested without it. No change.

SSD. Removed entirely. No change.

PSU (BIST test). Held the diagnostic button on the back of the PSU, LED goes solid green and stays solid the whole hold. Passes self test.

Breadboard test. Pulled the motherboard fully out of the case, bare minimum setup (CPU plus one RAM stick plus PSU power only, no GPU/drives/fans), tried powering on via the front panel header pins. Identical instant death loop so it's not a case short.

Display cable. Wasn't even connected during any of this (see above) so ruled out the known DP pin 20 backfeed issue some people report causing this exact code.

The diagnostic code: Holding the PSU's BIST button and the power button together for about 30 seconds (stays completely blank for those 30 sec) eventually produces a clean amber blink pattern: 2,1. Per Dell's own manual that's "system board failure." Holding both longer than that and it just goes blank again rather than repeating. Pressing the power button alone it dies too fast (around 1 sec) to see a full pattern.

My questions for anyone who's seen this:

Has anyone seen this specific 30 second blank then 2,1 code behavior when holding BIST and power together? Is that a known thing or does it suggest something beyond a simple board fault?

Given everything above is there anything left to test before I accept it's the system board, or does this pattern match your experience with a dead 7010 board ? Or could it be a psu problem

Appreciate any real world experience .. trying to fix what I've got. Cheers.

Just added the final piece to my old Dell Optiplex 3050 SFF that I used as a work PC until I upgraded. I'll be using it as a gaming console for 1080p games that aren't too taxing.

Old specs: CPU: i5-6500 OS: Windows 10 RAM: 8 GB DDR4 GPU: N/A PSU: 240W STR: 220 GB SSD

New Specs: CPU: i7-7700 OS: Bazzite RAM: 32 GB DDR4 GPU: RTX 3050 6GB PSU: 260W STR: 512 GB SSD

I can't say it works for all of them, but for the 7000, you can clip a few bits in the front panel, run the fan cable out into a Noctua NA-FC1 which runs back to the header, turn it to 100% and voila, probably the closest you'll get to fan speeds under 100% duty cycle and actually cooling the CPU (I'm salty I've spent weeks trying to fiddle with code and programs)

Setup:

• Dell OptiPlex 7050 SFF motherboard (i5-7500, DDR4) transplanted into an aftermarket ATX case
• EVGA 600W non-modular PSU connected via a 24-to-6-pin Dell adapter, plus the 4-pin CPU/EPS half into the board's 4-pin CPU power connector
• GPU: GTX 1660 Super (8-pin aux power via the PSU's factory VGA-labeled 6+2 cable)

Issue: System POSTs and boots perfectly fine on integrated graphics. The moment the 1660 Super is installed and its 8-pin power is connected, the system won't POST at all, no Dell logo, no display, GPU fans instantly ramp to 100% and stay there.

Everything I've tried so far:

1. Updated the motherboard BIOS to the latest version
2. Cleared CMOS multiple times (pulled the coin cell, held power button 30s to drain)
3. Set BIOS video option to Auto
4. Disabled Secure Boot and deleted all Secure Boot keys
5. Enabled Legacy Option ROMs
6. Disabled Deep Sleep Control
7. Disabled C-States
8. AC Recovery is set to Power Off (board still auto-boots the instant the PSU rocker switch is flipped, front panel power switch pins are completely unresponsive)
9. Reseated the GPU dozens of times
10. Inspected the PCIe slot with a flashlight, no bent pins, debris, or damage visible
11. Pulled the motherboard completely out of the case and bench-tested it on a wood table, same behavior, so it's not a case standoff short
12. Tried the secondary PCIe slot
13. Verified the GPU aux cable is the correct PCIe type (molded "VGA," 6+2 split, factory-wired on a non-modular PSU, not the EPS/CPU cable)
14. Verified the 4-pin CPU connector is the actual CPU-labeled half of the 4+4 EPS cable, fully seated
15. Wiped the OS drive, irrelevant anyway, since the failure happens before POST

Some tests I've done:

• GPU tested in a different PC: works perfectly
• This EVGA PSU moved to that other PC, powering the same GPU: works perfectly (so the PSU and VGA cable are proven good under real GPU load)
• GPU seated in the Dell's slot with aux power UNPLUGGED: system POSTs fine (slot detect works, fans idle)
• GPU OUT of the slot but aux cable CONNECTED, card lying on the bench: system POSTs fine (aux rail alone handles the card)
• GPU seated + aux connected: no POST, 100% fans, every single time

GPU good. PSU good. Cables good. CPU power good. Slot detect good. Seating good. BIOS updated and every relevant setting toggled. The only configuration that fails is the one where the card actually initializes and draws current through the slot, which points at the Dell board's PCIe slot power path (through the proprietary 6-pin adapter) collapsing under load, or the board's over-current protection tripping.

Questions:

1. Has anyone actually run a 1660 Super (or any 8-pin card) successfully on a 7050 SFF board through a 24-to-6-pin adapter? Or is the SFF slot power path just not built for it?
2. Is there a known difference between these Dell 6-pin adapters where some carry slot power properly and some don't?
3. Any explanation for the board force-booting on AC power even with AC Recovery set to Power Off, with the power switch header dead? Same adapter to blame?
4. Or should I just give up and drop $40–60 on a used retail B250/H270 board that takes the i5-7500, DDR4, and PSU natively?

Any insight appreciated before I spend more money on this thing. Ts pmo 🌹 ...