<< Solved >> Dell Precision 3630 Boots Great, Black Screens Randomly

[neilchen]

Hey, thanks for the fast reply. All good stuff - I'm getting excited at the prospect of getting this going.

Im assuming you mean use the attached EFI, as the baseline in OC, and follow a generic OC guide otherwise right? Also wasnt aware you had gone to Ventura (I was going to start with Monterey). Was that a system-prefs update, or already set that up on the USB boot installer?

I wasnt aware of CFG register tweaks on DELL and will need to school up on that. My old Optiplex didnt seem to need it (from memory).

No argument on the case layout - its "compact" and quirky for sure, but not exact easy for users to get into or mod and not sure why DELL decided to play with the format. No external bay access either which is annoying as I use a HD Dock to switch OS's on the old one (rather than dual boot/partitions) as its cleaner/simpler/works. I have an older Precision 3620 which has a great case / access and setup, but sadly they decommissioned that layout on the next gen.

I have an old FENVI card, but never used it. The points about the M2 and OEM Wifi I had noted and looking to source them. I wont be held up by that tho as use wired connections with towers so will start without, and plug in later.

Thanks again.

Yes, it was a System Prefs Update, super simple.

It's more a cooling issue with the case. They mounted the PSU ~0.75 cm from the top of the CPU cooler which gives virtually 0 headroom for cooling, it also occasionally makes the single case (exhaust) fan spin hard to compensate. I actually modded my case by using a fan splitter cable, took the two 3.5 HDD bays out of the front, and stuck a 120mm fan in the bottom for intake and an 80mm fan in the top to increase cooling at least a little. I used a 3.5 > 2.5 mounting bracket and put 2 2.5in SSDs in the bottom of the case so that I could use separate disks to boot into windows and mac.

I haven't used a 3620, but I can't imagine you'd have an issue with that as the chipset is fairly similar (Intel C236 vs Intel C246).

That 3620 Case Design is much better, yes. The Dell engineers realized that the PSU arm used in 3630, 3640, and 3650 was a bad idea though because they moved back to a more standard design by putting the PSU back at the bottom of the case in the Precision 3660.

 

[d360000]

Yes, it was a System Prefs Update, super simple.

It's more a cooling issue with the case. They mounted the PSU ~0.75 cm from the top of the CPU cooler which gives virtually 0 headroom for cooling, it also occasionally makes the single case (exhaust) fan spin hard to compensate. I actually modded my case by using a fan splitter cable, took the two 3.5 HDD bays out of the front, and stuck a 120mm fan in the bottom for intake and an 80mm fan in the top to increase cooling at least a little. I used a 3.5 > 2.5 mounting bracket and put 2 2.5in SSDs in the bottom of the case so that I could use separate disks to boot into windows and mac.

I haven't used a 3620, but I can't imagine you'd have an issue with that as the chipset is fairly similar (Intel C236 vs Intel C246).

That 3620 Case Design is much better, yes. The Dell engineers realized that the PSU arm used in 3630, 3640, and 3650 was a bad idea though because they moved back to a more standard design by putting the PSU back at the bottom of the case in the Precision 3660.

Will update here with progress, possibly over the weekend. When you say you are using two drives to multi boot - I assume you mean by using the boot options on startup , and selecting a disk, right? Or is there another funky way of doing this? (I know other multiboot setups use the mac boot screen).

Previously i used a 2.5inch dock, and just swapped drives depending on "machine" I wanted to run. Because the SDD are a hardware switchover it was pretty much always gaurenteed to work. (Ubuntu/Cinnamon/OSX/Win10 drives)

 

[d360000]

Hi there, sorry to ask - but how id the BIOS update go? I am on 2.17 at the moment so wondering which (if any) is the next step up that's worth taking.

On that note would be good to know what BIOS settings you used that succeeded - just the default "DELL" ones? I am using trs96's 7020 guide settings.

I can sure see what you mean about the heat issues. My fans are going beserk trying to keep up. Might do what you have done to try to mitigate - altho the replacement / better CPU fan seems to not be available anymore. Looking at Noctua but let me know your experience.

Apologies that I havent updated further on this build - am putting together some notes on how its going in my case, and also what is working/tested. I think it might help others trying it out on a D3630 - but heavily based on neilchen's hugely beneficial work above so only just adding for context/extras.