Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Listener]

For several days my Id (the current NUC model) has been producing fan noise that I hear from 10+ feet way.  It is loud enough to interfere with listening to music.

I use the Id as a headless device and select music from a smartphone running webremote.  To deal with any problems, I have to disconnect the Id from my system in that room (library) and take it to my home office. I connect it to spare keyboard, mouse and monitor and

1. BIOS settings had changed so that the fan was always running.  I changed settings so that the fan is not on until a fairly high min. motherboard temperature is reached.

2. When I take the Id back to the library and use it to play music, the fan comes on after a couple of minutes and stays on. It is loud enough to disrupt listening to music.

3. Back to the office for more troubleshooting.  I felt that dust in the fan and along the air passage might be making cooling less efficient so I used a vacuum to suck dust out.  I then hooked up the Id to keyboard, mouse and monitor and after booting, I just let it sit doing nothing.  After few minutes, the fan comes on quite loudly and stays on for about a minute each time.

Weather outside is quite hot at present but the house has an efficient air conditioner.  An i5 based NUC in our home office is not producing the same fan noise behavior as the Id.

If I can't fix this problem so that the Id stays silent, I'll have to junk the Id.  Any help would be appreciated.

[JimH]

Did you open the case to see if it's hitting something?

We'll fix it for you if you can't find a solution.  The fan shouldn't make that much noise.

[bob]

Did you add media to it lately?
Perhaps it's doing audio analysis or thumbnailing..

[Listener]

Did you add media to it lately?
Perhaps it's doing audio analysis or thumbnailing..

I added ~130 files a week or so ago by manual import.  (The files are on a NAS.)  I checked settings and found no reason for MC to be doing analysis now.

I was not comfortable disassembling the Id far enough to see whether there was anything hitting the fan.  The noise seems to be loud when fan speed is high.

I think I have a solution to my fan noise problem.  The original Bios settings seem to have changed after system hangups and/or power glitches.  The fan controller was set to zero speed initially.  The heat sink was not able to produce enough cooling and the temperature rose to the point where the fan kicked it at maximum speed. 

I spent a lot of time watching temperatures with the Id in the Bios and then doing experiments with the fan controller settings.  I've found some settings that seem to produce a quiet system.

Fan Control Mode = Custom

Minimum Duty Cycle = 27%  The fan runs at ~ 2400 RPM initially with that setting.  It can be heard 2 feet away but isn't very loud. It can't be heard from 10 feet away.

Primary Temperature = Motherboard

Minimum Temperature = 47 degrees C  (defines the temperature that fan controller will attempt to maintain.)

Duty Cycle increment = 4 %. (controls how much fan speed is increased as temperatures rise at the sensors.)

Most of the time this works fine.  However, sometimes the fan begins running at top speed and does not stop until I shut the Id down.  I have not been able to reproduce this behavior at will.

Some notes for others who have a noise problem:

1. Minimum Duty Cycle sets the minimum fan speed when the temperatures of the sensors are low. It also affects the fan speed at higher temperatures.  A setting of 0 %  keeps the fan from running when temperatures are low.  However, once the fan controller decides to turn on the fan, the fan will run at maximum speed (~ 4000 rpm which as quite loud.)

2. Minimum Temperature settings  above ~55 degrees are not honored by the fan controller.

3. The room temperature in my home office has been a few degrees about 80 degrees F while I tested.  The Id NUC does not have enough heat sink capacity to keep motherboard and memory temperatures to an acceptable level without the fan running.

4. If the noise level from your NUC based Id becomes bothersome, restart the Id and press F2 on the keyboard to enter the Bios.  Click on "Advanced" and then click on "Cooling". Watch the temperature and fan speed graphs and check settings.  If you don't want to make custom settings, the "Quiet" mode keeps the Id pretty quiet.  The "Balanced" mode is a bit louder.

Jim and Bob, thanks for the help.  I'll put the Id back in my system where it is headless and see whether I continue to have a problem.

[bob]

Is it possible that the spectrum analyzer in MC has been turned on? It's off by default in the Id builds. That can eat some CPU.
You can connect to the Id with VPN or Remote Desktop and look to see if it's enabled (bring MC out of iconified mode if it's in it then right-click on the header area of MC where the Media Center title is).

[Listener]

Is it possible that the spectrum analyzer in MC has been turned on? It's off by default in the Id builds. That can eat some CPU.
You can connect to the Id with VPN or Remote Desktop and look to see if it's enabled (bring MC out of iconified mode if it's in it then right-click on the header area of MC where the Media Center title is).

With some difficulty, I did check.  I use manual imports and didn't have the analyzer turned on.  I also checked Tools/Options menus for a setting for analysis.  Since I've never used that feature, I always have trouble finding the settings. I found no evidence that any analysis activity  is running.

I'll start a new thread to discuss the power button problem.