Any way to adjust fan speed/noise on the Dell Optiplex 960?

Any way to adjust fan speed/noise on the Dell Optiplex 960? My new Dell Optiplex 960 has a really loud fan. I hear that the 760 had some bad fans with the same problem. I've had no luck contacting dell via email or chat (I'll try calling them later this week).
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 388

Total answers/comments: 2

Comments display order:

Guest [Entry]

"SpeedFan may be able to reduce fan noise:

SpeedFan is a program that monitors
voltages, fan speeds and temperatures
in computers with hardware monitor
chips. SpeedFan can even access
S.M.A.R.T. info and show hard disk
temperatures. SpeedFan supports SCSI
disks too. SpeedFan can even change
the FSB on some hardware (but this
should be considered a bonus feature).
SpeedFan can access digital
temperature sensors and can change fan
speeds accordingly, thus reducing noise. SpeedFan can find almost any
hardware monitor chip connected to the
2-wire SMBus (System Management Bus
(trademark belonging to SMIF, Inc.), a
subset of the I2C protocol) and works
fine with Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000,
2003, XP and Windows Vista. It works
with Windows 64 bit too."

Guest [Entry]

"Dell Optiplex 960's (and other Optiplex models) are normally supposed to run quiet with the fans at low speed, though this can be bypassed in the BIOS with the ""Fan Control"" setting, which runs them at high speed all the time. The fans can be quite loud at high speed.

Also there are two temperature sensors on the 960 that I am aware of. If the cables to these sensors are disconnected or the sensors are damaged, the Dell hardware will run the fans at high speed as a protective failure mode.

One thermal sensor is on the front of the case and measures intake air temperate for the CPU cooler. The plug for it is near the PCI slot and buzzer. The second sensor is on the power supply, and the plug is near the back of the LAN socket."