Noctua NH-D15 chromax.Black - Fan Noise

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Tanquen

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 15, 2005
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I have been using it about a week and it was fine until I moved the middle fan to the outside as it was blocking the PCIe ejection lever.

If I unplug the fan the sound goes away. At low speed it's fine. It seems to change when I move the fan but is still there and louder when fan is fully clipped in.

If you turn up the audio you can hear it change.
 
Tanquen said:
I have been using it about a week and it was fine until I moved the middle fan to the outside as it was blocking the PCIe ejection lever.

If I unplug the fan the sound goes away. At low speed it's fine. It seems to change when I move the fan but is still there and louder when fan is fully clipped in.

If you turn up the audio you can hear it change.
Click to expand...
Contact Noctua. They will replace it.
 
It seem like you can't mount the fan facing the heatsink? If I remove the fan it's ok again. If I touch the rubber corners (of one side) it's still ok but as I move\angle the fan towards the heatsink fins, it starts to whine.
 
Assuming you have that fan oriented correctly to pull so it matches the original intake fan direction that you didn't move, then it sounds like the body of the fan blade assembly isn't sitting deep enough below the frame, causing it to come in contact with the heatsink fins. It only takes like half a milimeter of excess overhang for this to be an issue, so try either bending the fan clips a bit so that they hold the fan a bit further away from the fin stack, or use something to physically decouple the fan frame from the fin stack so that the parts don't make contact.
 
doubletake said:
Assuming you have that fan oriented correctly to pull so it matches the original intake fan direction that you didn't move, then it sounds like the body of the fan blade assembly isn't sitting deep enough below the frame, causing it to come in contact with the heatsink fins. It only takes like half a milimeter of excess overhang for this to be an issue, so try either bending the fan clips a bit so that they hold the fan a bit further away from the fin stack, or use something to physically decouple the fan frame from the fin stack so that the parts don't make contact.
Click to expand...
It's blowing the same direction, I just moved the fan to the other side of the second tower of the heatsink.
You can hear the noise increase as the fan gets closer to the fins. If it were to touch it would be a different sound.
 
Then I would still recommend decoupling the frame and the stack as much as possible. All fans have a different sound profile when their intake is obstructed, due to a variety of factors such as blade shape, rigidity, and stability of the hub area due to increased intake restriction. Try to match the stock config's distance from the frame to the stack (looks like roughly half an inch or so).
 
Tanquen said:
I have been using it about a week and it was fine until I moved the middle fan to the outside as it was blocking the PCIe ejection lever.

If I unplug the fan the sound goes away. At low speed it's fine. It seems to change when I move the fan but is still there and louder when fan is fully clipped in.

If you turn up the audio you can hear it change.
Click to expand...
Did you check to see if the small rubber pieces that sit between the fan and heatsink might have fallen out?
 
The little rubber pieces are in there pretty good. It does seem that when the fan blade is up against the fins, it makes the noise. Right now. I've just got it kind of setting in between the two fin towers like it's original location and it's fine. But with the video card there, there's no way to reach the clip on that side.

1683427605514.png
 
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Support just told me that is what happens if you move the fan from the middle to the out side, even if it's blowing the same direction. The fan blades are too close to the fins and it gets noisy. They suggested not using the second fan or getting a 120mm fan for the middle so you can reach the PCIe release lever.
 
Tanquen said:
Support just told me that is what happens if you move the fan from the middle to the out side, even if it's blowing the same direction. The fan blades are too close to the fins and it gets noisy. They suggested not using the second fan or getting a 120mm fan for the middle so you can reach the PCIe release lever.
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you could try bending the wire clips a bit and put in something in the corners to space it out a mm or 2
 
It's a temporary setup but I did check their compatibility list but I guess being able to access the first PCIe slots eject lever is not that important?
 
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Well the fan in the middle on the side facing the camera isn't clipped on. I just did this like a couple weeks ago. No noise other than fan up to 100.
 
Mega6 said:
Well the fan in the middle on the side facing the camera isn't clipped on. I just did this like a couple weeks ago. No noise other than fan up to 100.
Click to expand...
I'd have to remove the GPU to mount it. I'm just setting it there for now as it makes no noise there. If I move it from the middle to the outside then I can clip it back on but it makes noise.

If I took out the GPU and mounted it correctly in the middle location then I'd have trouble getting to the PCIe eject lever. I saw this before installing the GPU and wanted to move the fan to avoid the issue. I guess you could install the fan in the default location and use a thin metal ruler or something. With my lock I'd slip and scrape the motherboard.
 
As a D14 and D15 owner i suggest looking at pictures of the D14, since it has 4x built in little rubbery spacers to get the fans away from the fins a little to be push and pull compatible.
If you use low ram sticks a D14 with fans from a D15 will win almost any race against its newer brother by a bumper.

I myself ran 3 fans and have used whatever was in reach to build 4x little spacers so that i could run the fans far higher before the whine started.
;) So play around a little with different spacers. You will not reach 100% fan speed with this trick so ... do you personally need 100% fan speed?


! What follows is not advice, it´s where i personally am with ideas:
You can´t de-burr that thin of a piece since it does not come really into play (concerning noise the thinness is the issue) and is rather impossible to be made better by hand.

the idea came whilst painting, of course:

Let some kind of plastidip harden on the sharp fins. The least amount possible.
It is something i will test, but not for a while.

fyi: Not every fan sits as close to the fins as the original ones do.

Good Luck!
 
Tanquen said:
It a temporary setup but I did check their compatibility list but I guess being able to access the first PCIe slots eject lever is not that important?
Click to expand...
There's a reason why Asus (and maybe some others, I forget) have designed their latest motherboards with offset release buttons/levers that are linked to the PCIe latch, so that it can be used even with a huge CPU heatsink and/or extra wide GPU blocking the way . Even though there are defined ILM keepout zones that cooler mfgs can follow to maximize compatibility with the devices immediately surrounding them, those are usually the first things to be ignored with large cooler designs since it's easier to maintain case compatibility with a wider as opposed to a taller heatsink.
 
doubletake said:
There's a reason why Asus (and maybe some others, I forget) have designed their latest motherboards with offset release buttons/levers that are linked to the PCIe latch, so that it can be used even with a huge CPU heatsink and/or extra wide GPU blocking the way . Even though there are defined ILM keepout zones that cooler mfgs can follow to maximize compatibility with the devices immediately surrounding them, those are usually the first things to be ignored with large cooler designs since it's easier to maintain case compatibility with a wider as opposed to a taller heatsink.
Click to expand...
I saw that but it's nuts trying to find a board that has everything you want. I should have just gotten a smaller heatsink. I couldn't imagen the same heatsink just sized down to 120mm fans would have temps all that much better.
 
Support did offer to send anti-vibration pads but I think they need to update their compatibility list. Do motherboard manufactures put the CPU socket in different locations or everyone is ok with not being able to access the PCIe slot eject lever?

Thank you very much for contacting us.
Unfortunately, not being able to access the PCIe slot eject lever is not considered as a compatibility issue. Please consider removing the middle fan before replacing your GPU.
However, we can offer you thicker anti-vibration pads, that might help with the suction noise, if the fan is mounted in pull-configuration.
 
No room for a pencil, thin metal at best. I'm going to swap it out for the Noctua NH-U12A.
 
Tanquen said:
No room for a pencil, thin metal at best. I'm going to swap it out for the Noctua NH-U12A.
Click to expand...
a pencil is skinnier that the pcie slot. you snake it up behind the card and use the eraser to push the lever down. unless there are a tonne of m2 or chipset heatsinks in the way....
 
In a pinch those L-shaped pcie slot covers from any case will do, if you can spare one.

They will usually bend during extraction and are mostly trash afterwards.
 
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