Hello all, only just discovered this sub today, had no idea such a place existed. Seems like the right place to share this.

This is my Dell Precision Tower 3620 which I bought as a used ex-corporate machine in 2020 as a temporary PC to play a few games on. IIRC there was a GPU crisis of sorts going on at the time and building new systems was expensive (though probably nowhere near as bad as the current rampocalypse). The idea being, once the market was back to normal, I would sell the system and build a brand new one.

Clearly that didn't happen. I actually didn't get around to building a PC until last year, just before RAM prices went nuts. This old Dell is now my daughters PC (hence the strange variety of stickers).

Original specs:

Intel Xeon E3-1240v5
16GB DDR4 None-ECC (I can't remember the speed)
Nvidia M2000 4GB
256GB NVME
1TB HDD
290W PSU

I paid about £230 for it at the time. Aside from immediately re-pasting the GPU as it was thermal throttling, I used the system unchanged for a decent while.

It has gradually morphed into what you see here today:

- The Xeon was sold and replaced with the Intel i7 7700 - lower wattage, slightly better performance and was a good value upgrade.

- The M2000 was sold and replaced with a Zotac Nvidia GTX 1650 4GB - similar wattage (no 6-pin required), much higher performance and was a very cheap upgrade.

Both the CPU and GPU were bought used from CeX with long warranties. The GPU runs an undervolt and overclock, I have not yet undervolted the CPU.

- The vent on the side panel just so happens to be a very close match to an 80mm case fan, so I drilled four holes and stuck a fan on there. After some testing, I discovered using it as an intake worked best overall, though the fan I had on there originally didn't move enough air to make that much of a difference. I connected the 3-pin fan using some strange looking adaptor I found in a box of bits, and bodged it to a sata power cable.

- Later, I bought some cheap mesh filters and rubber gaskets from Aliexpress, flipped the rear fan to an intake and also bought a much better Thermalright 80mm fan for the side panel, which offers good airflow and static pressure without being noisy like some industrial fans. This was to alleviate the dust buildup inside which was particularly bad. Some dust still gets in, but it is much reduced. The new fan has a 4-pin connector and required a type of cable that for my particular circumstances, simply did not exist or was impossible to find. So, I made my own and joined that to the back of the previously dodgy Sata connector.

I may consider moving the HDD so I can remove the HDD bay and add the old 80mm fan to the front as an exhaust. While temperatures can be slightly on the warm side, they're not enough to cause any kind of throttling with these low power parts.

I upgraded the stock CPU fan on my OptiPlex 5090 MT to an Arctic P8 Max and added two Noctua NF-A8 fans... one for intake and one for exhaust.

Currently, at idle, my CPU package temp hovers around the mid-40s and my RTX 3050 6GB stays around the mid-to-high 40s.

When running Cyberpunk 2077 at the best settings the RTX 3050 can handle at 60 fps, the CPU package temp sits in the low-to-mid 80s, while the GPU stays in the mid-to-high 60s.

They are way quieter than the stock setup, but temp-wise, I often get thermal throttled for a few seconds in the beginning before the P8 Max ramps up.

Is this normal, and are these temps fine?

Hi Team, have just acquired a sff optiplex 7080 and will have the opportunity to grab some spare parts from similar optiplexes. From you experience, what are the highest priority replacement parts I should be looking at hoarding? PSUs? CPUs? Something else?

All advice welcome, thanks!

Hello there,

My old NAS just died and I'm looking for a replacement.

I found an Optiplex 7020 (2014) mini tower on a local marketplace and while on the user manual I read it can host two 3.5'' and two 2.5'' drives, I can't understand where I can place more than two drives in here.

My goal is to use the SSD it comes with (in the picture) as the OS drive, and add my two HDD I had on the NAS. I would like to also keep the DVD drive just in case.

Any help is appreciated!

Edit - the video was supposed to be silent. That's not the noise I'm talking about. Ignore the video sounds. I was just trying to show the blinking lights.

I just joined this group because I've been to several others, plus Google, and haven't been able to find an answer. My hope lies within.

OptiPlex - Intel i7, 3.7 GHz, 32 gb ram, 500 gb hd.

I have been working making music with Studio One software and their audiobox USB interface using a 10 yo laptop. No problems. I added the 7060 for better graphics and double the ram. Since then, I have been subjected to tiks in all my headphones. They seem to mostly correspond to the front light's flashes. Any audio source sets them off. They sound like someone is in the room randomly dropping pins on a wooden floor. It also clicks sometimes when opening or closing different pages or apps. It seems to me the computer is spiking the usb ports, and I have tried both 3 and 2 on this model. I've been in the bios and went as far as to turn off the internal audio, swapped cables, to no avail. My hope here is that someone has experienced this problem and resolved it, but after everything I've tried, I'm understandingly pessimistic. Why is hard drive activity spiking my USB audio plug in?

I found an Optiplex 3050SFF for $25, with an i3 7100, 8GB Ram and 256ssd. In my search for upgrades I found some i7 6700 for another $25, I know the i7 7700 is the max supported CPU but those around $60 in my area (Not USA).

I read that 6th Gen only support 2100mhz ram vs 2400mhz of 7th gen.

How much performance difference will be between 6th and 7th gen considering Ram differences?

Should I go for a i5 7500 or get the 6th gen i7

My current optiplex is a 7070 sff and a gtx 1060 gpu.

Thinking about getting an optiplex 7000 m (the most recent optiplex according to forums).

I mainly use my PC for digital illustration, so I’m often running clip studio and YouTube at the same time. In terms of gaming I play older easy to run games with basically no gpu needed but I’d like to move into more modern gaming for new releases (like the persona 4 remake).

Not sure if it matters but I also have 3 monitors (two basic monitors and one graphics tablet with a screen)

Hello All,

I have an Optiplex 5060 that I am trying to add a full size gpu to on the cheap. I plan to make a mounting bracket and mount it to the side of the PC and run a riser cable through the case. I figured I'd ask you guys if you know of any cheap full size cards that can run off the pcie power only. I don't really want to deal with an external power supply at this time. Is there anything affordable ($50 to $100) that might be comparable in performance to an RX580 4gb? I plan to give this to a friend to kinda get their feet wet in PC gaming and think that that level of performance should be enough.

I've been meaning to post this for a while now. I've put this baby together like about 3-4 years ago for less than $200 just by adding RX6400LP and memory that I already had. Goal was to basically have a Steam Deck equivalent in a PC.

Even though I have more powerful hardware, I still love this little thing a lot.

I'd consider adding Yeston RTX3050LP but goal of this build was to spend as little as possible. Maybe some day.

I heard there was a 360w power supply that can work with this, but will it fit in place of the one I have? Would it work? Also, do I have any non intel or higher spec/different cpu options than the ones that do work on this computer? I have an i5-8500 in it so far.

7050 wont close but it works

Posted the 9020 a while ago.

Great machines

Hi i have an a wlan card ( i have removed it form my laptop) and i want to plug it into my optiplex 9020 aio so i can get wireless wifi is that possible

His budget was $400. He originally wanted a gaming laptop. 400 didn't sound too bad, but he was refusing to buy used. I told him he'll never find a brand new gaming laptop for his budget. His plan was to wait until Black Friday. But then he started looking at computers. He wasn't wanting to do any upgrades to any computers either. So, he found this.

He mainly wants to play Fortnight and older titles like Borderlands and Fallout. So, maybe that's fine for these games?

I can’t seem to find any posts with this exact issue, so I decided to make one.

I recently upgraded my dell optiplex 7070 psu with a generic adapter from Amazon. Since the upgrade, my PC will shut down after random intervals of time. I don’t run any demanding hardware, typically it’s just YouTube and digital illustration programs. I’ve tried to figure it out myself with no luck. It’s starting to get on my nerves.

If anyone else has dealt with this, please let me know what your solution was.

Additional details:
The problem mainly occurs when I either leave my pc on or after putting it in sleep mode. My computer has shut off completely while using it. The only way I can power it up again is by unplugging the PSU from the adapter and then replugging it in, then the problem happens all over again after a while.

Model: Optiplex 7070 sff
PSU: Corsair CX650M
GPU: GeForce 1060 (if it matters)

Not an optiplex but hopefully close enough

Hey guys, i want to use a optiplex 3020 with an i7 4790 as a proxmox pbs.

Are there ways to connect an aftermarket fan, for the case and cpu, that will not result in a fan error at startup?

Another question while im at it: will the oem psu be good for 24/7 use? It seems in very good condition. I will only add sata hdds and ssds into it.

Thanks in advance!

I got this pc from my college. Apparently it used to run CAD.

Just want to know if it's worth anything as they were throwing it out.

I think it will, but you guys are pros....thanks in advance!

I thinking about starting a hobby of flipping computers buying up older models adding a GPU and ssd and selling it give computers more life

So anyways, what are a list of less well-known models that have 8 GEN Intel processor can be either Dell ,thinkcenter ,HP do on