Keep using Intel Boxed cooler or get a noctua/be quiet for home server

[DamirB]

Hi all,

 

So for my home server I am using the boxed Intel cooler, it makes a bit of a whirring noise but other than that noise or even performance levels are not my main concern, I am more concerned about longevity. The PC is stashed away in the attic and I don't monitor it that often so if the fan dies, it might take a while for me to find out.

 

How are you guys' experience with the cooler? Will it be fine or should I upgrade? Another doubt is my VRM cooling. It's downdraft so the VRM's are getting some airflow (my case fans are off unless cpu reaches 50+ degrees celsius) so if I upgrade I will either go NH-L9i (42€) or Shadow Rock TF 2 (51€). Than again, even when transcoding media with the stock cooler I have yet to see CPU core temps go over 40. At idle the core clocks are at 700Mhz and the CPU voltage at 0.060V so maybe I can even configure the CPU fan to turn off compeltely if I upgrade (unable to do so on the boxed cooler) if that won't hurt the VRM's

 

Where I live it is still winter tho, I still have to see how the system will hold up in the summer heat.

 

 

• i5 10400 (Boxed cooler)
• Gigabyte B560M Aorus Pro
• 2x WD Red Plus, 4TB WD40EFZX + 2 external WD USB drives
• Corsair Vengeance LPX CMK16GX4M2E3200C16 (two DIMM's)
• be quiet silent base 601
• Corsair RM550x 2018
• Samsung PM9A1 256GB SSD 
• Windows 11 Pro

[RONOTHAN##]

9 minutes ago, DamirB said:

if the fan dies, it might take a while for me to find out.

You can and should configure your server to send you an email if the fan or something else dies on it. That way you'll find out within a day or two (depending on how often you check your email) and can fix it right away. There will be a lot of tutorials out there for how to do that, depending on what OS the server is running.

 

I'd keep using the box cooler. I've dealt with enough old prebuilts (~10 years old) that I know have never been cleaned and have been running for years without turning off that still have the CPU fans working. The Noctua/be quiet! coolers might be a bit more reliable, but the odds of actually running into an issue with the stock cooler are low enough that I wouldn't bother. Also if you have it set up for emails, this doesn't matter, since the CPU will automatically thermal throttle itself and/or shut down if the temps get too high, so nothing will get damaged if the fan dies and you can't fix it within say an hour, and it's not like it'll be running without a fan for a month. 

[DamirB]

14 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

You can and should configure your server to send you an email if the fan or something else dies on it. That way you'll find out within a day or two (depending on how often you check your email) and can fix it right away. There will be a lot of tutorials out there for how to do that, depending on what OS the server is running.

 

I'd keep using the box cooler. I've dealt with enough old prebuilts (~10 years old) that I know have never been cleaned and have been running for years without turning off that still have the CPU fans working. The Noctua/be quiet! coolers might be a bit more reliable, but the odds of actually running into an issue with the stock cooler are low enough that I wouldn't bother. Also if you have it set up for emails, this doesn't matter, since the CPU will automatically thermal throttle itself and/or shut down if the temps get too high, so nothing will get damaged if the fan dies and you can't fix it within say an hour, and it's not like it'll be running without a fan for a month. 

Thanks for the reply! I'm not running a true server OS but just Windows 11 Pro but I will investigate for it it anyways, sounds like a smart thing to do.

 

In that case I think that I'll keep the stock fan in there, I am just not familiar with them which is why I am in doubt. When configuring the fans in the BIOS I couldn't get the CPU fan to stop at low temps, trying to troubleshoot this I changed it from PWM to DC mode and the fans did make a scary noise and afterwards a whirring noise when I set it back to PWM. But hearing from other that's the normal sound of the Intel cooler.

[RONOTHAN##]

19 minutes ago, DamirB said:

I'm not running a true server OS but just Windows 11 Pro but I will investigate for it it anyways, sounds like a smart thing to do.

 

There are ways to set it up on Windows as well. This is probably not the best tutorial (it's 8 years old and I'm pretty sure Speedfan has been deprecated) but this is one of the first things I've found for how to set it up.