I understand that companies are trying to make things proprietary but Christ, why would a company make a desktop PC with literally no extra power leads, no molex, no SATA power, and no motherboard pin outs for case fans? This poor Dell desktop is just sucking in air and there’s no way to ventilate it. This stuff is just garbage.

34 Comments

  1. SolarCaveman

    yeah, it’s crazy to me how much money Dell spends to make sure no one can use any parts. It’s 100% anti-modular. It’s been their model for sooo long.

  2. unabletocomput3

    Well, there is one fan header, it’s a shame it’s just connected to the cpu, literally the only one for several boards, and a different layout than standard ones.

    What’s even funnier is I cracked open one of the mini pc optiplex’s and it actually had a standard pin out fan header but there was only one and it’s for the cpu.

  3. SnooStories7223

    Because for 99.99999999% of use cases for a Dell pre-built shit box, none of that stuff matters.

  4. EducationalCamel1043

    so you have to buy new Dell duh.

  5. NoStructure5034

    Because many consumers don’t know better, and base their purchasing decisions off looks and/or brand.

    Look no further than Alienware’s garbage if you want to see a prime example of just how far Dell’s brand recognition and asethetics can carry a poor product.

  6. slayez06

    Dell doesn’t want you upgrading using their parts or upgrading their machines. I however know several ppl who during the GPU shortage were buying broken dells just for the GPU’s and aparently they did a ok job on the 30series.

    I love to rag on dells but in all honesty their machines normally do have good air flow to the critical parts and are over engineered in that department.

  7. Leather_Impact_4366

    Pulled apart my Alienware a few years ago to replace a fan and the thing wouldn’t even close back shut. . Had a huge “vent “ from cpu fan to back of case that took up so much room it was impossible to change anything about it not to mention a horrible bracket that made it “tool free”. I grabbed the 2070 from it and ditched the rest . Never again

  8. AllMyFrendsArePixels

    You preface the question saying you understand, but I don’t think you do. Why would they include extra power leads, molex, SATA power, and motherboard pin outs for case fans in something that is *not intended to ever* ***ever*** *be upgraded by the end user*? If you need an upgrade, you don’t open the case up and add parts, you throw out the whole PC and buy a newer / higher spec version. That’s literally their *whole, entire* business strategy. If you want an upgradable PC, you don’t buy a Dell/HP. It’s really simple stuff.

  9. Practical-Canary8782

    Why do people buy Dell is what I don’t get.

  10. liaminwales

    OP I can both see **2 spare SATA slots** and a port marked as “**SATA PWR**”, you may want to re look at your photo!

  11. LuckyGamer470

    Most people buying a Dell prebuilt don’t give a shit about that stuff.

  12. LuckyGamer470

    Most people buying a Dell prebuilt don’t give a shit about that stuff.

  13. MclaurinPCBuilds

    Dell made a product. Why do you have it if its not what you want?

  14. thedreaming2017

    Dell makes more money selling you a system every two years than selling you a well made one every 8 years. They make them cheap and fast and don’t really care if they are bogged down by crapware cause they get paid to put that crapware in there in the first place.

  15. Jonny_ice-cool

    Make things cheap as possible = bigger profit margins.

  16. Herman_-_Mcpootis

    It’ll cost a few cents per unit to add functionality they don’t need, they can’t have that.

  17. Appropriate-Oddity11

    because dell. dell is shit. dont get dell. dell is bad.

  18. Dell and HP job is to maximize profits. Because they do so much volume, they design their own components. Their goal with components is also to maximize profits and minimize cost. So their computer is to be used as-is. Focus is not future upgrade-ability.

  19. 1. It’s pushing air out.
    2. It’s cooling the VRMs, more than can say for most aftermarket coolers.
    3. Odds are its a predecessor of the ATX12VO where the motherboard does the Voltage stepdown as a necessary. So, if they’re not shipping the PC with a SATA drive, there is little point for them to add it to the motherboard.

  20. Because OEMs suck for enthusiasts. They are profit driven and thus they make shitty design choices meant to do one thing: drive people to spend more money.

    As enthusiasts, we should (in theory) have a working knowledge of most of the parts that go into a system. The people that Dell and others aim for, they lack this and they also lack the caring. Chances are, they have money to spend so they design this crap so that in a few shirt years, it will collect dust, slow down and force the customer into buying some other garbage.

    This crap isn’t even limited to regular people. The Alienware desktops have blown chunks overall because there are “enthusiasts” that just focus in gaming and will literally buy anything “gaming” related. As long as the numbers on paper look good (13900k, 4080, etc plus all the marketing scam terms), they will buy it… even if airflow sucks balls, motherboard lacks expansion, 240 rad AIO on a 1300k…

    tl;dr don’t buy from OEMs. If you can’t/wont build yourself, buy a reputable prebuilt.

  21. TheFlyingAbrams

    As a rule: You should not be buying from Dell unless your job has something to do with management or sustainment of the IT side of a business. They are not designed for being PCs. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying; even if they work at Dell.

  22. Spongman

    people rag gon Dell, but IMO for what they are they’re not too bad. they’re custom-designed down to a price for a single purpose: to do what it says on the tin. no, they’re not expandable. no, they don’t use standard board or case layouts. no, you can’t generally swap the components. if you want any of those things then you shouldn’t buy a Dell, they’re not for you (or me, personally).

  23. Saving on costs. This thing is not intended to be modified or expanded. Don’t buy Dell jank if you ever intend to open the case. Also repairability is irrelevant because Dell repairs them and has the guides and spares. Once it is out of warranty and/or Dell service contract, it is e-waste unless you want to hunt down spares via ebay or something. CPU, SSD and any dGPU may be useful components. DRAM is already usually so terrible crap that you don’t want to use it. Rest may only be useful if someone wants to buy it for spare parts for repairing other crap Dells of the same model.

  24. Acrobatic-Flower5351

    ![gif](giphy|6WGeNGHDvUxDRYplkb|downsized)

    Dell engineer’s

  25. Daemoni73

    More important question here is, why would anyone (private person, not company) with their right mind buy something from companies that use proprietary hardware?

  26. TONKAHANAH

    its to create a cycle of getting people to buy a new PC even after one dumb part fails.

    if your motherboard, power supply, and case are proprietary you cant just swap those parts out for new parts off the shelf when/if they fail.

    what happens is this conversation:

    “we need to hunt down a new part for this computer but its not a standard part so we’ll have to buy refurbished/second hand since this is a 5 year old pc. The other option is we buy a new case, motherboard, and power supply and just build a new PC with the left over cpu, ram, and hdd/ssd”

    customer who needs a working PC yesterday: “should I just go buy a new pc?”

    some times the investment of a new pc, preferably one that doesnt use proprietary parts, is the better longer term investment.

    I have had a number of these situations come up. some times the user wants to build a custom system to avoid this issue in the future so parts can be quickly and easily swapped out in case of failure, some of them dont want or care to fuck with it and have more money than time and often just want an excuse to buy a whole new PC anyway and will just go out and glady buy a new dell only to repeat the cycle in 5/10 years just like how dell wants.

  27. The best way to make a profit on these pre-built PCs is to build them as cheaply as possible while still functional.

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