Worse Noctua fan quality after moving production to China

[Dash Lambda]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Good, but the problem is that it will be nice and neat for a few months, and then, as discussed, quality will degrade if Noctua doesn't inspect EVERYTHING. So we have to test their fans 1 month from now, 6 months from now, even 1 year from now, to ensure that Noctua is really ensuring the same build quality. 'Cause let's be honest, not everyone will check their fans and compare them with their old ones.

 

All Noctua is saying now is: "Thank you for noticing, we are working with the manufacturer to fix it so that it is correct for the next batch... No recall will be done with retail stores, so if people don't notice and RMA them under warranty, they won't notice that they have less for their money. While we just forced the manufacture to fix their molding, we hope that they'll keep changing their mold as needed."

They said they're working on it, specifically that they're "developing new molds" and that they raised the issue with the Chinese manufacturer. That could just mean that they'll send out new molds and look away again as soon as the first inspection clears, or it could mean that they're working on improving mold consistency and accuracy and told the manufacturer that if they slip up again someone else will get the contract. Could also mean that they're gonna change the inspection policy over at the manufacturer, or maybe it really was just a fluke and they're working with the manufacturer to identify where the error occurred.

 

Given how important trust is with Noctua's market, I have trouble imagining that they'd just put a band-aid on and let it go until the next bad batch shows up. We really just have to wait and see how well they resolve this.

[Grinners]

grinnersaok 1 point 11 hours ago 

So to clarify, this isn't within your manufacturing tolerances? Because that's what was claimed before this became more public...

[–]Noctua_AT 1 point 4 hours ago 

Hi Grinnersaok,

They were within our tolerances as of the manufacturing date however we reviewed our factory tolerances and have changed them.

[ravenshrike]

Which means that the Chinese were manufacturing them at the absolute edge of all the tolerances at once.

[Sparviero]

It would be nice to figure out what isn't made in China. I'd be happy to support companies that still manufacture outside China. 

[rn8686]

5 minutes ago, Sparviero said:

It would be nice to figure out what isn't made in China. I'd be happy to support companies that still manufacture outside China. 

Why, does it really matter where they manufacturer their products? Quality inherently worse there, thats down to the individual manufacturer (Though they do have a tendency to cut corners to make money). 

15 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Anyone saw the reddit reply from Noctua?

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/6o4rzo/visible_manufacturing_differences_between_noctua/

 

 

As I thought, just a bad mold, should hopefully improve soon. No re-call though, I would assume there isnt any major problem then (Going to be real bad PR if there are).