Noctua P series for chassis intake?

[Lapsio]

So I bought some NF-P14 fans some time ago for chassis. Now I'm not sure if it wasn't mistake. They seem to be kind of loud. On the other hand I'm using Define R4 and Define R5 which have quite dense air filters. In the end I'm quite puzzled because while outtake with rare grill is quite obvious use case for A series, those intake slots are quite ambiguos, especially if you consider that they're behind doors and N layers of airflow obstructions. Noctua mentions "tight grills" etc but it quite broad and relative description so... Is dense dust filter like ones in Define cases dense enough for P series to be good choice? Or should I consider change do A series everywhere?

[WoodenMarker]

They should be fine. What rpm are you running the fans at?

[Lapsio]

15 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

They should be fine. What rpm are you running the fans at?

1200 because it's summer and everything is overheating anyways I have 36 deg ambient inside chassis. Around 30 deg in room. 98 deg on GPU under extended load.

[WoodenMarker]

5 hours ago, Lapsio said:

1200 because it's summer and everything is overheating anyways I have 36 deg ambient inside chassis. Around 30 deg in room. 98 deg on GPU under extended load.

That's at or near 100% rpm depending on the specific model you have so it's not surprising that it's noisy. 

Why did you mention both the R4 and R5? Are those two separate systems? Did you move from one to the other?

What are your specs and how is your airflow configured?

[Bcat00]

You know, if your components are running at 98 degree then you are tackling the issue in the wrong way. Case fans only provide airflow, not cool your components outright. 

 

Consider modding your gpu with a beefier aftermarket cooler if you are having trouble taming that temp.

[kevinisbeast707]

Yeah something about that temp on the gpu seems like either the cooler is really bad, or it could be a bad mount... But the p series should be pretty much perfect for that since they are Noctua's old "balanced" fan. Still waiting for the new A12x25 reviews to come out so I can see how they're gonna be worth the extra $10 over their older stuff...

[Lapsio]

I'm waiting for 2 more fans and I'll get back to this topic next monday along with revealing more details about setup. Possibly with photos.

[Lapsio]

Okay i got fans. Still loud af and hot.

On 6/2/2018 at 11:00 PM, WoodenMarker said:

That's at or near 100% rpm depending on the specific model you have so it's not surprising that it's noisy. 

Why did you mention both the R4 and R5? Are those two separate systems? Did you move from one to the other?

What are your specs and how is your airflow configured?

Yeah those are 2 systems. Well... kind of... It's sibling. Master PC is in R5, Slave is R4. R4 contains some hardware that I had no spece left for in R5. Like HDDs and fans controller. This machine has i7-2600k, GTX 580 Twin Frozr II and Quadro 4000. Other peripherals are: Xonar D2 soundcard, 2 SATA controllers, 12 HDDs RAID, 1 SSD, 1 DVD, 1 fan controller, 1000w XFX Platinium PSU. 3 drives are in slave R4. Cases are wired together. Side panels are removed. I made cardboard decals to prevent mixing of hot and cold air and seal those cases together a bit more. Other 4 drives in slave are connected to actual PC in slave case but it's not really relevant as this machine is just here to not waste case space. It's rarely used old pc, mostly sentimental value. Also I'm planning to upgrade to 18 HDD RAID so final goal is to fully populate both cases and wire them together to one system.

 

All HDDs are mount on rubber rings (standard Fractal mounts) 5k rpm so they don't really vibrate that much. Plus this thing is heavy af so it also helps with vibrations... CPU not overclocked. Cooler is NH-D15. All fans are P series. One 1500 PWM in the back. Rest is 1200 DC. bottom one is 120mm, also P series, non-redux. I use black Noctua silicone mounts. Master PC controls all its fans and 2 fans from slave R4 (to privide some HDDs cooling)

 

System is running at around 80% CPU all cores on idle. GTX 0% (CUDA only device), Quadro 5-20% for dual-head desktop. CPU sits on 55-ish deg, goes up to 63-68 in prolonged 100% stress (few hours). GTX 580 hits 98 deg in prolonged stress and I think it throttles. Quadro sits on 50-60% fan speed on idle after some time (even though at the beginning it runs 40% just later heats up over time and spins up fan.

 

It's workstation. Im severely disappointed with noise levels and cooling performance. Just in case it's not visible desk has cutouts in back for I/O and cooling of cases. It's visible on one photo but I moved case a bit forward so it's barely visible but well... trust me there are cutouts . Unfortunately water cooling is probably not really applicable as soon I'll be getting 40G Intel X710 network card and I already have Dell Perc 6/i SAS RAID card, which are server cards and require serious airflow in case anyways just like HDDs so I need airflow anyways and... yeah. I imagine custom blocks for all those cards and everything would be insane cost-wise.

 

total noise level is probably a bit above 40dB because my 2kW UPS APC SMT2000i is rated at 40dB noise and this PC is louder than that.

[WoodenMarker]

1 hour ago, Lapsio said:

Okay i got fans. Still loud af and hot.

Yeah those are 2 systems. Well... kind of... It's sibling. Master PC is in R5, Slave is R4. R4 contains some hardware that I had no spece left for in R5. Like HDDs and fans controller. This machine has i7-2600k, GTX 580 Twin Frozr II and Quadro 4000. Other peripherals are: Xonar D2 soundcard, 2 SATA controllers, 12 HDDs RAID, 1 SSD, 1 DVD, 1 fan controller, 1000w XFX Platinium PSU. 3 drives are in slave R4. Cases are wired together. Side panels are removed. I made cardboard decals to prevent mixing of hot and cold air and seal those cases together a bit more. Other 4 drives in slave are connected to actual PC in slave case but it's not really relevant as this machine is just here to not waste case space. It's rarely used old pc, mostly sentimental value. Also I'm planning to upgrade to 18 HDD RAID so final goal is to fully populate both cases and wire them together to one system.

 

All HDDs are mount on rubber rings (standard Fractal mounts) 5k rpm so they don't really vibrate that much. Plus this thing is heavy af so it also helps with vibrations... CPU not overclocked. Cooler is NH-D15. All fans are P series. One 1500 PWM in the back. Rest is 1200 DC. bottom one is 120mm, also P series, non-redux. I use black Noctua silicone mounts. Master PC controls all its fans and 2 fans from slave R4 (to privide some HDDs cooling)

 

System is running at around 80% CPU all cores on idle. GTX 0% (CUDA only device), Quadro 5-20% for dual-head desktop. CPU sits on 55-ish deg, goes up to 63-68 in prolonged 100% stress (few hours). GTX 580 hits 98 deg in prolonged stress and I think it throttles. Quadro sits on 50-60% fan speed on idle after some time (even though at the beginning it runs 40% just later heats up over time and spins up fan.

 

It's workstation. Im severely disappointed with noise levels and cooling performance. Just in case it's not visible desk has cutouts in back for I/O and cooling of cases. It's visible on one photo but I moved case a bit forward so it's barely visible but well... trust me there are cutouts 

What are your HDD temps? 

CPU temps seem fine and you can probably lower fans speeds considerably. It's fine up to 80-90c at load. Is the core voltage left at auto? Setting it manually might lower temps even more.

Are the fans on the 580 ramping up to compensate for temps and are those the loudest components? Are the case fans also too noisy?

The 580 isn't a cool GPU to begin with and you should probably replace the thermal paste if you haven't already since it's pretty old. 

Have you tried undervolting or lowering the power limit for the 580 with software like Msi Afterburner?

You should either flip the top fan in the R5 to intake or move it to the mount further back for exhaust. Using it as an exhaust is usually better but it might be better to have as an intake since the case is in a recessed area without much ventilation above it for heat to escape. Left as is, it's exhausting otherwise cool air that could go towards the CPU cooler. 

Does the cutout behind the system block off the rear exhaust fan or pci vents?

[Lapsio]

15 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

What are your HDD temps? 

CPU temps seem fine and you can probably lower fans speeds considerably. It's fine up to 80-90c at load. Is the core voltage left at auto? Setting it manually might lower temps even more.

Are the fans on the 580 ramping up to compensate for temps and are those the loudest components? Are the case fans also too noisy?

The 580 isn't a cool GPU to begin with and you should probably replace the thermal paste if you haven't already since it's pretty old. 

Have you tried undervolting or lowering the power limit for the 580 with software like Msi Afterburner?

You should either flip the top fan in the R5 to intake or move it to the mount further back for exhaust. Using it as an exhaust is usually better but it might be better to have as an intake since the case is in a recessed area without much ventilation above it for heat to escape. Left as is, it's exhausting otherwise cool air that could go towards the CPU cooler. 

Does the cutout behind the system block off the rear exhaust fan or pci vents?

I don't remember but something within norm like 40 deg (HDDs). It's RAID and those are NAS drives so they don't park nor spindown for less wear and more I/o stability.

 

I'm not sure if on idle gtx is loudest. In load it sure is but when gtx is on load then I'm rendering serious stuff so I'm more concerned about noise when gtx has 0% load. I gave gtx load temps because they make me concerned a bit about case cooling. I'm fairly sure Quadro is louder during typical usage and runs quite hot on just desktop. It's single slot, hight rpm blower card based on Fermi iirc just like 580. 150w. This: https://www.quietpc.com/pny-quadro-4000-vcq4000-pb it goes up to high 70 deg on idle but I followed threads that this as workstation cards "likes" running hot so I'm a bit confused. It doesn't throttle for sure but noise is... what you'd expect from 4500 rpm blower. I mean if fan in this card is manually set to 100% (because it doesn't occur in wild even under 100% load) then it's literal jet engine. Noise like vacuum cleaner, hard to stand even for few seconds it sounds like pc is about to explode.

 

Once I'll get home I'll post screens and exact rpms, % and temps of gpus and hdds because I don't remember exact values. 

 

When fans run at 100% or in general higher than medium rpm then yes they're loud. But it's like balancing between case fans noise and gpu whine... Not sure what's worse.

 

Top exhaust in this desk works a bit like "chimney". I feel lots of hot air being spit out to front of desk. There's around 15cm gap between case top and desk and it seems to manage to pull hot air to escape in front of desk. Though I considered moving top fan to rear slot instead of middle one.

 

Cutouts are about size of case cross section with ~2cm margin from each edge so they cover most of case back. in particular all io, psu out and rear ventilation mesh.

[Lapsio]

21 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

...

Here are exact temperatures and rpms. Shot with Skyrim in background is 100% stress on everything for 2h (RAID integrity check + CUDA rendering on gtx + CPU renderfarm in background + Skyrim in VMWare on Quadro), second one is idle for around 30 min (after some moderate load before that to pre-heat PC a bit).

 

By idle I mean stuff that typically runs in background which is few VirtualBox VMs doing some usual stuff like i mentioned before so while it's some considerable CPU load, GPUs are rather idling. And problem is that this idle is quite loud. In fact really loud.

 

Max Quadro fan rpm is 6000. For GTX 580 it's 4500.

 

Disks temperatures on idle are following:

lapsio@linux-qzuq ~> for i in (ls /dev/sd* | grep -v "/dev/sd.*[0-9]") ; echo -e "\n$i" ; sudo smartctl -a $i | grep -i "temp\|model" ; end

/dev/sda
Device Model:     ST2000VN004-2E4164
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   065   059   045    Old_age   Always       -       35 (Min/Max 26/41)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   035   041   000    Old_age   Always       -       35 (0 21 0 0 0)

/dev/sdb
Device Model:     ST2000VN000-1H3164
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   067   050   045    Old_age   Always       -       33 (Min/Max 27/44)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   033   050   000    Old_age   Always       -       33 (0 20 0 0 0)

/dev/sdc
Device Model:     ST2000VN000-1HJ164
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   066   056   045    Old_age   Always       -       34 (Min/Max 27/44)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   034   044   000    Old_age   Always       -       34 (0 20 0 0 0)

/dev/sdd
Device Model:     ST2000VN000-1H3164
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   064   046   045    Old_age   Always       -       36 (Min/Max 26/45)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   036   054   000    Old_age   Always       -       36 (0 19 0 0 0)

/dev/sde
Device Model:     ST2000VN000-1H3164
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   064   043   045    Old_age   Always   In_the_past 36 (Min/Max 27/42 #6)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   036   057   000    Old_age   Always       -       36 (0 20 0 0 0)

/dev/sdf
Device Model:     ST2000VN000-1HJ164
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   066   058   045    Old_age   Always       -       34 (Min/Max 27/40)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   034   042   000    Old_age   Always       -       34 (0 20 0 0 0)

/dev/sdg
Device Model:     ST2000VN004-2E4164
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   064   055   045    Old_age   Always       -       36 (Min/Max 26/45)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   036   045   000    Old_age   Always       -       36 (0 21 0 0 0)

/dev/sdh
Device Model:     ST2000VN004-2E4164
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   064   052   045    Old_age   Always       -       36 (Min/Max 26/48)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   036   048   000    Old_age   Always       -       36 (0 21 0 0 0)

/dev/sdi
Model Family:     Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000
Device Model:     Hitachi HDS723020BLA642
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   150   150   000    Old_age   Always       -       40 (Min/Max 18/56)

/dev/sdj
Model Family:     Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000
Device Model:     Hitachi HDS723020BLA642
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   142   142   000    Old_age   Always       -       42 (Min/Max 18/51)

/dev/sdk
Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar Green (AF, SATA 6Gb/s)
Device Model:     WDC WD20EARX-00PASB0
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   115   085   000    Old_age   Always       -       35

/dev/sdl
Device Model:     Samsung SSD 850 PRO 256GB
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0032   058   044   000    Old_age   Always       -       42

/dev/sdm
Model Family:     Seagate Barracuda 7200.12
Device Model:     ST3500418AS
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   061   042   045    Old_age   Always   In_the_past 39 (0 15 39 27 0)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   039   058   000    Old_age   Always       -       39 (0 18 0 0 0)

 

[WoodenMarker]

The drive temps seem great and case fans seem to be doing their job just fine. The problem is just the graphics cards and the fans on them. Have you tried replacing the thermal paste on them?

Do you have the windowed or windowless R5? Adding a side intake could help lower GPU temps.

[Lapsio]

14 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

The drive temps seem great and case fans seem to be doing their job just fine. The problem is just the graphics cards and the fans on them. Have you tried replacing the thermal paste on them?

Do you have the windowed or windowless R5? Adding a side intake could help lower GPU temps.

They're not windowed (neither R4 nor R5) but they don't have side panels due to cables running between them (as shown on photos). It's kind of one big shared, sealed with cardboard+cotton (for noise dampening) panels chamber.

 

One temperature I forgot to tell: up to 35 deg inside chassis during this 2h full stress test (36 deg alarm triggered for a split of second during test but then temp dropped below so it was max peak, one probe attached to cables hook behind motherboard of R4 being exactly in the middle of this whole chamber and close to all pci-e devices and second one to back of hdds cage in R5 being right next to 580, around 1.5 inch from it) so it's safe to assume it's more or less temperature of intake for gpus. Intake-only config in R4 should (I hope) push some air into R5 working a bit like one huge somewhat-intake.

 

GPUs didn't have paste changed and Quadro wasn't really even cleaned much as I have no idea how to blow heatsink properly in blower style card . Both were bought used - 580 from private renderfarm, Quadro from commercial workstation (after lease). Both are from around 2010-2011 and I used them more or less the same way they were used before so 580 for CUDA rendering and Quadro for 3d software viewport. I have Noctua thermal compound left from NH-D15. Would it be okay for gpus?

[Lapsio]

So I changed paste on gtx. Old paste was rock solid I almost didn't need alcochol to rip it off... I thought I screwed up as I was putting heatsink on and off multiple times as fan cable was going in my way. Temperature dropped 10 degree in 25 min stress test. After that I decided to put paste once again as I thought I screwed up but it turned out I didn't and paste made perfect contact. When putting paste again I ran out of paste Luckily it's GTX because Quadro is my primary gpu so at least PC is still usable... If I didn't decide to repaste again I'd run out of paste on Quadro and would be severely screwed.

 

Cosidering I can't use gpu for a while anyways, waiting for new paste I decided to clean PCB and heatsink with contact cleaner which should hopefully get rid of patina accumulation on heatsink over years.

[WoodenMarker]

Yep, NT-H1 is perfectly fine for GPU's. Nice work on the cleaning!

The heatsink can be taken out on its own if you dismantle the cooler enough for both cards. It can then be easily washed with water if you let it dry completely before reassembling it or blow / wipe the dust away.

[Lapsio]

9 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

Yep, NT-H1 is perfectly fine for GPU's. Nice work on the cleaning!

The heatsink can be taken out on its own if you dismantle the cooler enough for both cards. It can then be easily washed with water if you let it dry completely before reassembling it or blow / wipe the dust away.

Now when I think about it... maybe this cleaning wasn't really good idea

I used WURTH contact cleaner because I could ask father to take one from work for free as it's official contact cleaner used for on-board electronics by Audi... It says it's okay for electronics up to 24V so it's correct, it's mineral oil based so it also doesn't sound that bad but... it also says it's highly flammable and please do not expose to temperatures above 54 degree... It's one like this:

https://eshop.wurth.pl/Contact-spray-CNTCTSPR-300ML/0890100.sku/en/US/PLN/?VisibleSearchTerm=0890100&CampaignName=SR001

 

I'm not sure if this warning applies just to can when it's highly condensed or object it's used on as well. Because if yes then 98 degree of GPU sounds quite bad compared to 54 degree explosive limit. I MIGHT have fucked up. Just a little bit. Or a bit more...

 

I know I'm not putting it on core itself just on board which probably doesn't heat up that much but I'm not sure what is temperature of PCB components when GPU is in stress. I ordered isopropyl alcochol today but it seems to be almost impossible to clean this oil off from all those tiny spaces between resistors.

 

Crap. :C

[WoodenMarker]

1 minute ago, Lapsio said:

it also says it's highly flammable and please do not expose to temperatures above 54 degree... It's one like this:

https://eshop.wurth.pl/Contact-spray-CNTCTSPR-300ML/0890100.sku/en/US/PLN/?VisibleSearchTerm=0890100&CampaignName=SR001

Where and what exactly does the warning say?

[Lapsio]

12 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

Where and what exactly does the warning say?

http://ehs.wuerth.com/ehs4customers/export/01903920.PDF

 

Signal word : Danger
Hazard statements : H222 Extremely flammable aerosol.
H229 Pressurised container: May burst if heated.
H315 Causes skin irritation.
H336 May cause drowsiness or dizziness.
H412 Harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects.
Precautionary statements :
Prevention:
P210 Keep away from heat, hot surfaces, sparks, open
flames and other ignition sources. No smoking.
P211 Do not spray on an open flame or other ignition source.
P251 Do not pierce or burn, even after use.
P261 Avoid breathing spray.
P273 Avoid release to the environment.
Storage:
P410 + P412 Protect from sunlight. Do not expose to temperatures
exceeding 50 °C/ 122 °F.

 

[WoodenMarker]

4 minutes ago, Lapsio said:

http://ehs.wuerth.com/ehs4customers/export/01903920.PDF

Since it's under the Storage section, the warning is probably for taking care of the can and the pressurized contents as opposed to the product after it's used. 

[Lapsio]

Okay so I repasted it (again) bathed in IPA to get rid of mineral oil from heatsink and PCB. GPU looks like new and works (lol) but upon further testing temperatures are honestly just as shit as they were before.

 

I performed another 40 min continuos load test with following results:

 

GTX temperature seems to be a little bit better (didn't hit 100% fan speed and oscilated around 88-89 deg instead of 92-93 like it used to be but it's still far from impressive.

 

Ambient in case hits 36 deg (which triggers alert in fans controller) when fans are set to 7V / 60%

 

With case fans at 100% case ambient drops to 33 and doesn't seem to exceed this value, GPU drops to mid 80 but then case fans are audible even through 4500 rpm fans of GPU.

 

Some final thoughts are that I think heat exchange of GPU is now better (thus case ambient is higher and GPU temp is a bit lower) but now fans struggle with cooling case ambient without running 100% rpm so I don't even know if it's better or worse than it was before At least I think now gtx doesn't throttle but noise is even worse than it was before.

 

Edit: After increasing alert limits case ambient goes even up to 39 deg. Thought GTX temps still remain below 90. Cooling in this machine is some enormous clusterfuck... It's all screwed up.

 

Edit2: After 1.5h of 100% stress all of sudden gtx temp dropped below 86 despite case ambient reaching 40 deg because fuck logic. Physics of airflow in this thing overwhelm me... I simply cannot comprehend it and find any logical rule... Maybe it has something to do with exhaust fan being controlled by motherboard thus CPU?... so higher ambient increased CPU temp and increased exhaust and inproved airflow because something something... I give up.

 

Edit3: After 2h I reached 42 deg ambient in case and 92 on gtx. At this point HDDs and especially SSD are getting hot (48 deg on SSD, 41-43 on HDDs). CPU sits on 60. I'd like to note that i have removed front doors in both R4 and R5. Fans are still at 60% because I want to see how bad it can go if I don't crank them up to 100%.

 

Near the end of rendering I cranked up fans to 100% to see if they can cool down such heated PC and fans at 100% drop case ambient quite quickly to 34-35 deg. so they can keep up running at 100% but they're loud af in such case. So they seem to struggle with handling non-throttling 580 after cleaning and repasting.

[WoodenMarker]

If you can place an intake fan up against the side of the graphics cards, that should help. 

If you haven't already, you can use software like Msi Afterburner to undervolt to lower power draw and temps.