Dells Drive Toaster - The Optiplex 745 USFF with a Pentium D

[@satsumagt5284]

Amazing how they figured out the CPU cooling so well

[@jims_junk]

lol yeah really, took them long enough.

[@tezcanaslan2877]

When you are kept alive by intel’s big bucks you might as well develop cooling catering to those

[@jm764]

My aunt still has the 755 model of this USFF pc in the guest room of her house. Just updated it to an SSD drive and C2D E8600 cpu (sadly, don't take C2Q cpus). Since I'm the tech of the family, I triple booted it with XP, 7, and Win 10, so my neices and nephews can play classic games on it natively. :)

[@jims_junk]

Very nice!

[@lucasgoldner2625]

I have the same but the SFF version, slapped a C2Q Q9550, 8GB of DDR2 RAM and a cheap 240GB SATA SSD, on the hunt now for a cheap low profile GPU.

[@michvod]

I have 745 normal tower, and it takes C2Q, but only C2Q 6700

[@infinity2z3r07]

always thought 745 usff were neat looking machines. hdd temps are something 99% of people never even thought about (myself included). dell also could've side mounted a 2.5 inch near that inlet but it'd be much less capacity at the same cost. heck, it still is!

[@jims_junk]

I agree completly. I never thought of it either...they just worked. But when all we did was replace em we took a look.

[@MrSIMURDIERA]

My grandparents have this exact Dell except it’s rocking a Core2Duo, I swapped an SSD and a fresh copy of windows 10 4 years ago and even though it’s still working like a champ I always found weird how under normal usage the drive temperature would be 60 C most of the time. Great PC for really basic tasking though!

[@SudosFTW]

Used an SX280 (precursor to this) as a home server for a few years. caps started failing so I replaced it with a 760 USFF motherboard and had to kludge up a fan to make it shut up about the drive fan failing. I kept a 2.5" drive in the caddy and one in the optical bay with an adapter... it worked rather well. Had an E8200 in it most of its life but later dropped in the Xeon equivalent of the E8400 which had a lower TDP. DA-2s are hard to find these days in good shape as they also suffer cap plague issues and anyone that had them a few years ago sold out for lots of money selling them to GPU miner farms.

[@madcat4563]

0:16 Ahhh, those dells. The desktop and small form factor ones were used in my high school by the teachers, and they hated it. This was 2016-2020 for me; I'm pretty sure they still use them.

[@jims_junk]

knowing schools, they probably do. I once was at a school that still used G3 imacs in the late 2000's. Its ridiculous

[@madcat4563]

@jims_junk Insert image of when they got thrown out at one point. I think you might have seen that image float around. From what I've seen, the imacs that look like that have become collectable. But I don't know much about them.

[@jims_junk]

@@madcat4563 yeah I guess to some they might be. I love old Macs but still have nightmares about the g3 imacs

[@zigenstern]

i remember having one of these, it was hilarious when the drive reported that it was at 90c and then the whole system bluescreened and never posted again

[@Dabaski]

I have the micro tower variant of the 745. The slow DDR2 memory and the 8GB limit really holds this generation back from its potential

[@maladamedialabs4214]

I've got two mini tower 745s and I love them. Upgraded both to quad cores with Q6600s and 8 gigs of RAM and SSDs. Unfortunately, the can only take single slot graphics cards. Still, they completely rock using Linux Mint or Haiku.

[@9852323]

Still really good computers.

[@jjohnson71958]

i love the compact design and look

[@Rabbit_AF]

Dell had a monitor stand that these would connect to, and that would turn it into a sort of AIO.

[@martinkoyle]

Me too. Wish they had pcie ports inside. I'd definitely use one with something like a gt 710. Just for youtube browsing on a core 2 quad.

[@draxal000]

We had a ton of these at a company i worked for back in the day - They did stay pretty hot in there and were a pain to clean. Roasted a few Sata cables in these guys.... 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@MotownBatman]

Dell had some Funky different SFF cases in the Early 2k's & beyond. I had one of these briefly but the power supply failed and I didn't feel like getting one of eBay back then

[@KeyboardBuster]

I got mine for free back in 2016, it was discarded at the end of somebody's driveway during spring cleanup. It's got the Core2 duo and 2GB of ram and I think a 160GB HD. Drive was good but it didn't post with both 1GB stick in. I read this model can forget it's BIOS settings and after a cmos reset with a jumper, it accepted both sticks of RAM and worked perfectly. It's impressive to me they made a Core2 duo class computer so small. It would be a king hooked to a living room TV with a couple wireless Xbox 360 controllers playing retro games with a CRT GLshader. The CPU cooler looked like solid copper. Awesome.

[@misfitsman805]

I have one of these PCs! Ran Mac OS X pretty well back in the day.

[@KeyboardBuster]

I didn't know the guts of the thing slid right out after taking out four screws, thank you for that! I'm thinking of sidestepping the proprietary Dell power supply socket, soldering wires right to the points on the motherboard, extend those wires out to a coupling, and run the whole thing off an Xbox 360 fatty power supply.

[@Murdoch493]

I had to manage these when I worked in IT at a college. I awa always very surprised how easy they made it to replace the hard drive, because that did happen quite a bit until we just said hell with it and chucked a few SSDs in the thing.

[@arnislacis9064]

I had Dell Optiplex GX 620, and it worked well, but motherboard VRM failed, after some time, because I upgraded to Pentium D cpu. Now I replaced everything in that case and modified to fit standard micro ATX motherboard.

[@jims_junk]

Nice!

[@arnislacis9064]

@@jims_junk I had put Asus P5KPL AM motherboard in those Dell Optiplex GX 620 chassis and Radeon HD 8570 as 4K display adapter. I put Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200, that is even faster than Pentium D 820, it performs like Core 2 Duo (it actually is cut down C2D). The system works great. I connected 4K Dell monitor to it and I could even browse web in 2024, without any issues.

[@redspidermkv4525]

Had a 755 USFF many years back, with an SSD and 8GB RAM in it, it was actually a pretty respectable machine back in the Windows 7 days (though not for gaming obviously)

[@jims_junk]

I completely agree. If we had SSD's installed, they probably would have been our favorite machines at the time. Other than the hard drive problems, they were great.

[@gearfriedtheswmas]

I think reversing the flow of the two cpu fans will improve the drive temps.

[@worrier]

Have you thought about trying to sqeeze a little fan on the left vent. I'm not sure if intake or exhaust would be better. But could maybe help keep the air that the hard drive recirculates cool by either expelling it. Or by bringing cooler air in for it to use. Maybe if you're real lucky it'll blow the old hot air to the right and towards the cpu fans and out the back. Maybe one could be put further into the case blowing towards the cpu cooler. Might help keep the ram cooler and move that hot air to the cpu fans but i dont know if getting one ot both of those to fit would be possible. A simple exhaust fan out the left might be better anyway to not give the cpu any mire heat to deal with. Love your videos, would be super neat to see you try and fix this ones thermal design like you did last time.

[@gytax01]

I have same PC somewhere lying . Its pretty rugged, but Pentium D runs like volcano, hot and loud. Also its very obsolete, basically for XP only , since no GPU don't know what use it has nowadays.

[@jordivanselm3201]

I still got one. The power supply is ridiculously big

[@RMA2009]

I have one of these, I picked it up from an estate sale with it's original power supply and some accessories. All the plastic around the hard drive was brittle and needed to be replaced, as well as a good third of the capacitors were bad which also were replaced. I've spent around $200+ fixing and upgrading this computer, the HDD was replaced with an SSD and it runs windows 7 now (it ran windows 10 when i got it and it was painful to use).

[@jims_junk]

Windows 10 on these? Ouch. I forgot to look or test it, thought they only took 4gb of ram. On windows 10 ouch!

[@RMA2009]

@@jims_junk Mine has 2gb of ram but I'm pretty sure they can also come with 1gb. They can support up to 8gb at low speed I'm pretty sure. Also forgot to mention mine has a core 2 duo and not a pentium D

[@pablogm117]

I actually expected to see hard drives inserts through the case 🤣

[@ecnepsnaiold]

That's quite a bit of mechanical engineering to let you rotate the logo. PlayStation 2 and older PS3 had a similar thing but you just twisted it.

[@worrier]

I always loved that dell offered that feature sometimes. Some of the other models just rotate like the PlayStations.

[@VW_Fan]

I used to be a Desktop Engineer back when these were new. We had a lot of these in the fleet, the fan under the hard drive used to fail a lot! A daily event. The BIOS batteries also used to drain at a stupid speed.

[@jims_junk]

Come to think of it, you're right, I do remember the bios battery problem. There were a few dell models that chewed through batteries. I'm used to bios batteries that last 10 years or more, not on these.

[@lm_dccxl4078]

theres something awful with the very first versions of this dell machines were they have a dvi-i port but they dont deliver any analog output, and they are shiped with vga lcd monitors with an special converter/splitter that most of the times is more expensive that the monitor itself. i know theres an bios update for it, but half the times after the update it still doenst work the pc only will display a signal with the og adapter and not a generic one.

[@hateWinVista]

A redesigned air duct stealing some cool air into HDD area would help tremendously, since the CPU is already well cooled. I always get fascinated by these old SFF systems, good thing we have way more efficient hardware(and SSDs) that getaway with pretty bad thermal designs.

[@aprilkolwey4779]

I have the SFF version of this thing here, which has an... amusing cooling setup - it's more or less the same story with air going in the front, through the CPU heatsink, and out the back.. except the hard drive is right behind that heatsink, so the hot air from the CPU heatsink just blows directly onto the hard drive. Thankfully mine has a Core 2 Duo in it.

[@MichaelFlatman]

I think, disconnect the front cooling fan, leave the rear one and hdd one in. The negative pressure from the rear fan will draw air over the heat sink, keeping cpu cool, but also draw some air in from the vent near the hard drive cage

[@shodan2958]

I think its a cute small form factor PC for what it is, would be nice to collect one if it was possible to fix the cooling.

[@jims_junk]

Might not be too bad with an SSD

[@shodan2958]

Definitely an idea, I have to admit I do like having them in my machines of all ages. @@jims_junk

[@pankoza]

SSD is the only option for this thing

[@falken5688]

Great video and channel

[@jims_junk]

Thank you!

[@electroshed]

I wonder if.. knobbling the intake fan's capacity would have caused more air to be drawn in the vent by the northbridge heatsink, giving the drive some cooling at the expense of CPU cooling?

[@vanderlinde4you]

Even tho WE know how important cooling a regular HDD is, company's like dell design these with a certain life / timespan in mind. It would likely "die" beyond it's warranty period - and from there on obviously they don't have a obligation to fix any of that.

[@jims_junk]

Completely agree. Only problem was, with some they died way before the warranty expiration.

[@vanderlinde4you]

@@jims_junk Don't forget the quality of HDD's turned so bad in the last decades. Esp seagate drives would have this reputation of random dying, esp in the first one to three years. The only good disks i still have running and are at least 15 years old are Samsung drives. Temperature does play a role but i've seen drives survive for years in 65 degree conditions in hot summers.

[@jims_junk]

@@vanderlinde4youoh definitely. Around the time that these were new, I remember WD being aweful. I never had any luck with them, and Seagate at that time was good. Then it seems one day I woke up in the late 2000's and everything had changed, now WD was reliable and Seagate sucked.

[@vanderlinde4you]

Seagate changed the quality of components. Fabricate cheaper, more profit. But it damaged the reputation so much. I’m never buying Seagate again.

[@realDesertLad]

Aye I sold one of these at my store! Like last year! We put Windows XP on a 240GB SSD

[@pankoza]

Didn't know the 745 also came with Pentium D, I thought it only supported Core 2 Duos lmfao

[@jadeite_taylor]

I have an earlier GX620, which uses the same chassis but doesn't have the fan under the hard drive. I was thinking of finding a way to attach a small slim fan to the bottom vent, but I haven't had any trouble after switching to an ssd. I love this form factor and really wish something like it would come back with pcie instead of 3.5

[@shodan2958]

Just a note to say I saw this video upon upload and now I've bought a Dell Optiplex GX620 USFF that looks very similar to this, not the exact model sure but I think I could work with it and get some nice small XP era box going. Really like the form factor and if I can get it running nicely, it should be fun to use I think and if not, eh can easily use it as a paperweight for holding books up or something. Looking forward to the challenge nonetheless.

[@jims_junk]

Excellent! and thank you. Yeah the 620usff was a good machine. People these days don't realize how groundbreakingly small they were for their time. Best of luck with it!. Also if you have any stability issues or if it doesn't post, check out those caps. This was towards the end of the 'cap-ocolypse' so you might be ok. If not its easy to replace them, tons of youtube videos of people doing it.

[@shodan2958]

@@jims_junk Thanks, got soldering experience so the caps shouldn't be an issue. I'm very much in this for the long haul to get it going so I'm confident I'll end up with a working system at some point

[@blakecasimir]

When Sandy/Ivy Bridge and Haswell OptiPlexes can be had so incredibly cheap now, these older systems just aren't worth running any more.

[@jims_junk]

Eh. Its more about the history and looking back to the crap we had to put up with.

[@adventureoflinkmk2]

Hmm. Not like you cant use a 3.5" to 2.5" adapter in there.. see how that goes

[@nashcomp]

The "D"isaster processor explain all

[@jamescollins6085]

I wasn't expecting to see server fans in there. Dell has always been known to use brute force over engineering.

[@jjohnson71958]

speedfan 4.52 works with dell

[@Pie4life123]

Lazy tech didn’t care to add a case fan himself just made work for himself to be employed

[@pepelepew2690]

What if you put in an Ssd? Would it work cooler?

[@jims_junk]

Probably a bit.

[@zachariah74]

Is there a fix for this one then? Are we going to get a follow-up like with the clamshell hell? :)

[@jims_junk]

I could if anyone has any ideas. Only thing I could think of is (as someone said) reverse one of the cpu fans, or add a small fan to the side vent.

[@marshal7969]

I wonder what if you put a sata ssd instead of the hdd, would temps still be an issue?

[@jims_junk]

probably much better, however whenever you open the lid after its been on, its like opening an oven door

[@marshal7969]

@@jims_junk Haha now that's toasty

[@arjan1995]

I doubt it. SSDs can also get pretty hot by themselves (newer NVME drives sometimes have heatsinks). They will not tolerate high temps that well.

[@marshal7969]

NVME is out of the question, sata ssds are cooler and i think it is better

[@christiangomez2496]

Currently saw this model (or at least a similar type) at my work recently in a junk pile.

[@jims_junk]

Shoulda grabbed it! They make wonderful space heaters and paperweights.

[@christiangomez2496]

@@jims_junk I wish, but they said have to dispose of them, and even then, they put them on sale or donate .

[@randomguy50480]

I had one of these with a Core 2 Duo and noticed the same issue, so I took the CPU shroud out, can’t remember if it made a difference but I think it did

[@ShieyV2komputroniks]

Then i wonder how tbe hdd,s survived in other office pcs , were the drive has no fan near by

[@jjohnson71958]

add a front mounted case fan bro

[@SummonerArthur]

Wow, i used to think these looked so cool

[@johnathanjamesjohnsonjr7408]

...👏👍🖖 ...ever seen this channel called lowcastle tech?

[@jims_junk]

Have not but I'll check it out

[@zsombor_99]

I thought my (horizontal) DELL Optiplex GX270 have bad airflow, but... OH MY GOD, this thing is ridiculous! 😯 👎

[@agrax3]

Just remove rear fan and cooling wil, overall, get better.

[@cupidstunt5270]

Nobody does shitty proprietary design quite like Dell.

[@martinkoyle]

Hey.......when you're good at somethin you stick to it

[@10blood]

Hard drives failing because of heat? BS that doesn't happen.

[@martinkoyle]

Please tell me that's sarcasm

[@10blood]

@@martinkoyle No it's not. I've tested as many as 20 hard drives over 8 years and heat was not a factor.

[@joeynebulous816]

@@10blood 20 hard drives, that's pretty cute actually, who's done testing on hard drivers? You have, yes you have, you're such a big boy aren't you?

[@10blood]

@@joeynebulous816 If you're going to be retarded about it that's fine. I can waste my time elsewhere

[@vanderlinde4you]

Yes and no. I’ve seen drives easily survive 65 degree for a few summers even: just depends on the build quality of those drives. I’d say that the overall quality in the last 20 years turned to garbage. Cheaper to make blabla.