I wanted to upgrade my dell optiplex 7040. I got it at a government surplus auction and was surprised when it had an i7-6700 and 32gig of ddr4 memory. That’s better than the one I have. I thought it would be easy, just get a new power supply and graphics card. Here is a picture with the graphics card in it.
I was amazed that the geforce 660 ti even fit inside of it. It was tight but it fit and closed just fine. The power supply would not fit inside and I am not against a ghetto computer so I was going to leave it outside and use gorilla tape to attach it. I tested it of course before doing anything permanent and nothing showed up on the lcd screen. No signal whatsoever. After doing a bit of research I found out that these dell motherboards limit the pci-e slot wattage to 35 watts. It is supposed to be 75 watts, so the card wasn’t even turning on. Frustrating to say the least. The power supply was a challenge too because these optiplexes use a propriety 8 pin supply connector. I tried to solder one up based on some pictures I saw, but was missing the key component. The 5v always on line is actually 12v in dell optiplex 3020, 7020, and the 9020 series. I got on ebay and ordered one. It worked great, but like I said, the motherboard just doesn’t give the pci-e slot enough juice for these high end graphics cards. Optiplexes are great for energy efficiency, the psu that comes with it is only 240 watts.
I had to order two from ebay, because the first one was just crimped and one of the wires was loose. Here is what it looks like on Amazon: Click here to see what it looks like on Amazon.
could you share a picture of how you have connected the graphics card and the motherboard with the new power supply
I went and searched for one, but couldn’t find it. I never actually assembled it because while the Power Supply was a whopping 700 Watts, the motherboard only sent 35w to the PCI-E slot. Thus rending the whole project mute. I just bought a new motherboard, ripped the processor and memory out and put the whole thing in a bigger case.
I am curious how much you paid for the 7040 at auction. We use this computer at work for programming and I too was surprised when I looked at it’s specs. However, the one I use only has 16GB of RAM. This was an interesting read. Thank you for sharing.
I put in a bid for 55 dollars on a local government state auction. I think they might have messed up because it was sitting with old dell opti plexes. I have no idea how it got there and I recognized what it was when the other bidders apparently did not. There was two i5’s in the lot too, so quite a lucky day for me.
Hey man, so in the end, you were able to use the new graphics card just as long ass you upgraded your PSU? or did you have to buy a new motherboard
I had to buy a new motherboard. The one that came with my 7040 only supplied 35 watts to the PCI-E slot. The high end graphcis cards need 70 watts.
IS there a motherboard that fit in this case?
I am not sure if there is or not. I doubt it, it seems like is specifically a Dell motherboard. I had to use an old ATX case I had lying around after I got a new motherboard.
I have the i5 7040 and I run a 1050ti in it overclocked its a solid rig when you keep within the 240watt power target my 1050 clocks up to 1928 core clock and 3600 on the ram speed its a good computer maybe something happened to the pci slot on your motherboard the card you picked would never work on slot power because it needs 2 6 pins to power up so a PSU would be needed to get it up and running I was planning to put a zotac 1080ti mini in mine but its not worth the effort going to leave it for 1080p 75 HZ gaming and build a new rig for 144 with a thermaltake g3 case about the same footprint with standard ATX motherboard.
I got 7040 i7 with 16 Gb ram from office, before serious digging I brought a PNY Quadro 4000 PCI 2Gb Nvidia graphics card on eBay, still in transit not yet reached.there is a 6 pin power connector on the card, I found some SATA power adapters to 6pin atx,the PSU in 7040 rated at 240W and the max on Quadro is 140W what you think will it work ? or will it fry my PSU as well will SATA power adapter is enough for it
It’ll be close for sure. Hope it works 🙂 In my experience it won’t fry until you have fully loaded the cpu and graphics card (or a brown out occurs while you’re doing it). It’ll probably work for awhile and then after a few months ‘boom’ while you are working it’ll go. Hopefully not though! Hope it runs for years for you.
Ah that’s good to know. I searched all over the net trying to figure out if a nvidia 1050 would work or not. As you read above, I ended up just getting a new motherboard and power supply.
Dear ; thanks a lot for sharing your experience ; i just buyed a second hand Dell 7040 optiplex MT i7 ; i have questions ; where did you find on the web the info that the PCI-E Slot only supplied 35 watts on this motherboard ; can’t find info. Other info ; i’m planning to buy the Nvidia Graphhic Card with name Geforce 1030. This card spec said that it’s used 30 w (https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-1030/specifications). It’s also saying that recommanded system power should be 300 W. My Optiplex 7040 is a 240 w : do you thing it would works without “Boom” bug later ? Why did’nt you considere the GT 1030 in fact ? Thanks a lot in advance for any info !!
I read the 35 watt limit on a forum that some one posted, so not a very reliable source. If you draw 300W from a 240W source you will get a boom, no doubt. However it is very rare that you are going to draw 300W, so its a gamble. The GT1030 was not fast enough to play the games I wanted.