Hardware Engineered Solutions
One of my coworkers called me up from next door. “Come on over here a sec,” he said. “O-Kaay. Fine.” I say. I go over there and he is trying to figure out how to get the motherboard out of one of our new GX620 desktops. Coincidentally, no one in the room has had the need to do such a thing. First off, he explains to me why he needs the motherboard out. This desktop is going out to the conference services department to be used for a video wall in the auditoriums henceforth they obviously need this kick ass PCIe video card. Right. First off, when the card wouldn’t fit in the chassis because the end of the card wouldn’t fit with the gimungous (haha what a dumb word) heatsink/cover on the P4 processor. How did he make it fit? He hacked it, literally. Earlier he had taken the heatsink/cover downstairs to the facilities department and used a hacksaw on it to allow the card to sit next to it in the case. (haha it gets better) With the card jammed tight inside, he boots the PC up fine and tests it out with a quick game of Splinter Cell (included with the card). Soon enough the video goes blotchy and hangs. After closing out of that, there was a window that had popped up saying something to the effect of “ATI THERMAL EVENT” meaning the video card is definitely overheating. Why oh why?
You see, this particular card requires the equivalent of two slots for the card itself and its onboard fan. He has the card on a riser board (otherwise the card is too tall vertically) that makes the card sit parallel to the motherboard. Dell made the riser section so that the PCIe slot is at the far end. This PCIe card needs some extra room for that fan and it happens to sit right in front of the parallel (printer) port. This means there’s hardly any airflow going through.
Now, we’re trying to get this motherboard out. All screws are taken off and it seems the only way it could possibly come out is to slide it forward. WTF. It doesn’t budge because the is a case fan/speaker assembly and IO panel (power button, usb ports, audio jacks) in the way. Those took a miracle and a half to remove as it wasn’t very intuitive at all. Dell doesn’t have a service manual on their support site or on their DCSE site. I think we managed to rip that stuff out just shear luck without breaking them. The motherboard found its way out just fine. Back to why he needed the motherboard out. If you’re thinking, “Well that darn parallel port is in the way!” you’re right. Sean takes another trip down to facilities and cuts off the parallel port. Well, bye-bye 3 year warranty. (haaahaa)
Amazingly enough the damn thing boots up fine. Nevermind the parallel port is missing and the video card’s power cable is literally milimeters away from the heatsink. I thought it be best that I didn’t tell my team lead although he may ask me why I didn’t try to stop him. My solution probably would have been “find a video card that fits” or “special order a larger chassis” but this is type of thing Sean does when he has a deadline of “they need it today.” This isn’t the first time he’s used the hacksaw though it is the first he’s used it on the computer itself.
In retrospect, I’m wondering who at Dell engineered the GX620’s layout. It seems to be the most pain in the ass to service. Hard drive replacements require removing the CD and floppy drives before reaching the hard drive. The motherboard obviously requires everything to come out beforehand. I do say that next time someone wants to show us a new model in a Dell meeting, we’re taking it apart then and there even if it is a desktop.
Well, I was amused. Usually when I hack something, it’s in an innovative sense – not physical. I wish I had my digital camera today. I would have done the Lyndy England pose for sure.
