CPU fan noise level

Discussion in 'UDOO X86' started by wavemaker, Sep 2, 2016.

  1. wavemaker

    wavemaker New Member

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    I'm seriously considering pre-ordering the UDOO X86 and put it behind my tv as a combined HTPC/server. I will most likely leave it on 24/7. Noise is an issue. But I think I'll need power ocassionally as well, so I probaly would to order the fan:
    http://shop.udoo.org/eu/cpu-fan-for-udoo-x86-heatsink.html
    Is there any information on the noise level that I can expect with this fan? Or are there other (more silent) fans that are compatible?
     
  2. jonthe838

    jonthe838 New Member

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    I would like to know this as well, I'm going to use this in a portable project and depending on how loud the fan is, I might buy a third party solution. Does anyone know how large the heat sink is and how far apart are the screw holes?

    Sent from my Apollo Lite using Tapatalk
     
  3. Triodefreak

    Triodefreak Active Member

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    I bought a fan with very very low noise. 16dB. Which is virtually inaudible
    https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/326887/noiseblocker-blacksilent-xs-1-50mm/specificaties/
    for my pc. However...because this fan is connected to the motherboard...noise is transferred to the motherboard...and suddenly one can hear the fan all the time. The cpu is of the type N3700 also on the x86 udoo board..but does not have a decent passive heatsink. Meaning my fan has to work hard.
    If the udoo can control the speed of the fan and have it run at very low revolutions one should be able to make it pretty silent.

    I am hoping that the UDOO supplied heatsink is big enough not to need a fan. Since I want it to be absolutely noiseless.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2016
  4. Andrea Rovai

    Andrea Rovai Well-Known Member

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    Hi guys,
    for everyday usage, for "consumer usage", for browsing and, broadly speaking, entertainment, the fan is not necessary and you can just enjoy the silence of the passive heatsink.
    If you are going to develop something that it's resource-intensive I suggest you to go for the fan. But you don't need it to watch Narcos.
     
    drc85 and Maurice like this.
  5. Flint

    Flint New Member

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    I found a 50mm ball bearing fan on an old cpu pulled from a pentium ii/iii era computer. Using some cad, I drew up a shroud to attach this to the heatsink, and 3d printed it. It is normally a 12v fan, but if you run it on 5v, it is imperceptible, and provides enough airflow that the heatsink is a lot more effective. I will be putting the shroud on thingiverse once I have fixed the minor issues.
     
  6. diglo

    diglo New Member

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    During my tests, in which I stressed the board with Youtube playback at high resolutions (FHD, UHD), the CPU core went up to 70-80°C (monitored with RealTemp)
    I was using the passive cooler. The HDMI flickered a couple of times, showing random color pixels and stripes on a black background.
    I associated that with temperature, then placed a fan on the heatsink, temperatures went down and flickering disappeared.

    As a side note: Looks like the board is not capable of youtube 4K60FPS decoding.
     
  7. itimpi

    itimpi UDOOer

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    . Correct. according to the Intel site the GPU can only do 30fps when running in 4K mode.
     
  8. Kilrah

    Kilrah Member

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    I believe the video decoder can decode 4K60 (even the Atoms can, maybe not in a browser but at least from a file), but the problem is that the board isn't capable of outputting more than 4K30 to a display.

    Regarding fan I found a tiny one that's jsut the size of the heatsink, it's quite noisy at 12V but running at 5V is inaudible and already cools the CPU down by 20°C ot so.
     
  9. Maurice

    Maurice Active Member

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    Wondering, why are you adding a fan already? Why not only do so if you notice that the system gets into trouble without a fan?
     
  10. thE_29

    thE_29 Member

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    I dont even know, where I could buy such a tiny fan..

    Is it possible to add other heat-sinks or put one into the original one?
     
  11. Flint

    Flint New Member

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    I don't want to take chances, a lot of X-boxes failed because the solder balls failed due to heat issues. Having a fan is the best way to ensure that doesn't happen
     
  12. Sjonno

    Sjonno New Member

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    My Udoo reached max temps yesterday while Windows 10 was busy running windows defender and Kodi was building the video database.
    Core speeds were throttled back to 480Mhz. The heatsink was extremely hot (too hot to touch longer then 2 seconds).

    I found an old 80mm case fan in a drawer and hooked it up to a power supply to cool it down.

    Anyone found a suitable fan on ebay? I would like to order one. Preferrably configure the system to only use the fan when CPU temp gets above a certain treshold.
     
  13. waltervl

    waltervl UDOOer

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  14. Andrea Rovai

    Andrea Rovai Well-Known Member

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    Soon! As soon as Kickstarter orders and pre-orders are shipped we'll put whatever is now in pre-order on sale.
     
  15. thE_29

    thE_29 Member

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    Is there any mount/case so that you can install a bigger fan? Like 5x5cm or even 8x8cm?
     
  16. Markus Laire

    Markus Laire Active Member

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    Fuzzyroll and thE_29 like this.
  17. thE_29

    thE_29 Member

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  18. Markus Laire

    Markus Laire Active Member

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  19. thE_29

    thE_29 Member

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    But how do I connect the 3-PIN connector from the fan?
    And why are there hardly any SATA-power to 12V 3PIN adapter, but many IDE-power to 12V 3Pin..
     
  20. Markus Laire

    Markus Laire Active Member

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    The third pin is just RPM output and is not used for controlling fan. To control 3-pin fan you would need to give it less than 12 V. For now I've been just using 80mm fan at full speed while testing, so just ground and 12 V power connected.

    I don't really like tiny fans, so I'm considering using 80mm fan also in the future but with lower speed. I ordered a F8 TC fan which has it's own temperature probe for speed control. It's intended to keep case temperature between 30C to 40C, but I think it might work nicely with UDOO X86 when connecting the temperature probe to heatsink. I'll test this when I receive it.
     

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