Fan-less silent PC

[pablolie]

I'm not sure which sort of support you would need. It's not like Apple provides any support either at any point in time. If the machine is broken, then it must be fully replaced because nothing is repairable. In the case of a normal mini PC, which comes from a Chinese company such as Minisforum or Beelink... The parts are usually Standard laptop parts, so ram And drives and sometimes fans and wifi and such are replaceable... If there is an issue you can email them about new parts.

Plus one typically buys this stuff from an online vendor, and they accept returns and/or provide their own support.

And as someone who enjoys building my own desktop PCs, it's easy to get support from the MSIs or Asus for -as an example- functionality issues on motherboards, graphic cards etc - they host excellent user forums and the moderators are typically good support people that actually don't walk through the painful basic questions before they really offer help (is the device on? what happens if you restart the device? do you have the latest driver? ...ugh).

I find support is pretty useless with computers these days, in general. But bless the Apple Genius store support that keeps my mom entertained for an hour here and there. :-D

 

[napfkuchen]

My personal mini-pc is a Asus PN51 (NUC). To reduce noise I put all its components in an full aluminum case for passive cooling. From my gaming computer there was a 120 mm fan left over. Placed on the casing it reduces the CPU temperature to 60°C maximum and the computer is dead silent from a distance of 30 cm.
However, altogether this cost about 700 Euro in 2023. Would not spend that much money for a replacement again. Today I would just watch some reviews of the cheap companies listed above. For some "light" usage even very cheap computers are sufficient. Got a Intel N100 powered pc by Chuwi for my father for 120 Euro (120 GB RAM and a 500 GB SSD included). While it will not be fast enough for video editing oder gaming, casual tasks (Email, web-browsing, 4K video playback) are no problem at all and it is also very silent.

 

[dasdoing]

Throughout this topic, I mentioned my semi-fanless setup. Fans would occasionally start up when participating in video conferences (like every 10-15 minutes or so). I recently switched power mode in Windows from balanced to best efficiency, and now they spin up like once or twice a week for a few seconds. I always thought that this mode would be noticeable, but I really can't notice any worse performance. Of course, I am not a gamer.

 

[Oldson]

ok, i stand firmly corrected.
i should have asked for opinions first off, before stating what i had read elsewhere.
i was obviously wrong.

the "semi-fanless" idea is appealing.
i dont do gaming, currently, but may want to one day as my good lady pointed out. (i tend to change my mind quite a lot)

 

[pablolie]

...
the "semi-fanless" idea is appealing.
i dont do gaming, currently, but may want to one day as my good lady pointed out. (i tend to change my mind quite a lot)

I have an i7 build with a Noctua fan, a fanless GPU, and fanless power supply. It's as silent as a mouse's fart behind the wall, even when pushed some.

Yes, gamers need all the cooling they can get with some super resource intensive titles... but like others, I am not a gamer. My rig is super-fast for all I need in amateur photography and even some video editing and AI video encoding (but not with the most advanced forms of the latter, but hey, that's what cloud services are for).

 

[Oldson]

i expect for me, gaming would be very occasional and casual , so as long as whatever i get performs just "ok", that would be fine.
i get bored quickly .
have seen a few youtube reviews of the base M4 and that level of gaming ability would be adequate, from what i can tell.

the options seem endless.
i need to decide on a budget (much lower than what i have suggested on previous posts) and stick to it.
however, my track record of "sticking to budgets" is abysmal .

 

[Cbdb2]

Why not just get a windows tablet? Quiet, small, cheap, all in one. Ive been using one to run Performer for plug ins (comp/limiting, reverb) for jaming and also as a music server/spotify player for 7 years and never had a problem. If your not gaming with it why do you need more?

 

[Steve Dallas]

I have a couple of the Beelink SER8 machines. The fan only comes on in Performance mode and only occasionally at that. And it is not loud like a NUK. In normal mode (set in the BIOS), the fan never comes on. As for serviceability, it uses laptop parts, so the only thing at risk is the motherboard.

I also have a Mehle Quieter 3 as a music player in my media room. It is not a powerhouse, but it is plenty good enough to run your favorite media player plus Dirac standalone. Actually, I also use it to watch 1080 video streams (Indycar Live) and it is able to handle that too.

 

[Oldson]

Why not just get a windows tablet? Quiet, small, cheap, all in one. Ive been using one to run Performer for plug ins (comp/limiting, reverb) for jaming and also as a music server/spotify player for 7 years and never had a problem. If your not gaming with it why do you need more?

not really fancying a tablet for daily use.
much prefer a desktop scenario, and using a much larger screen.

 

[PristineSound]

Got my Streacom case here. Built it with a APU, so I can also use it to watch TV in silky smooth 4k.

Living it.

 

[Keith_W]

BTW, there is a new alternative to Streacom cases for those who are interested in building a fanless PC. I read about it on Tom's Hardware:

There are two versions, a copper version (pictured) and an all-aluminium version. Unfortunately the copper version (which looks sexier IMO!) is limited to 100 pieces and it is really heavy - 21.5kg (47lb). Cooling capacity is said to be 250W TDP split between CPU and GPU.

The other major bummer is that it's only available in China. So if you want one, you have to get creative.

 

[Cbdb2]

not really fancying a tablet for daily use.
much prefer a desktop scenario, and using a much larger screen.

Fair enough, whats the advantage of a desktop for music server? You know you can feed an external screen etc. with a tablet.

 

[Roland68]

i expect for me, gaming would be very occasional and casual , so as long as whatever i get performs just "ok", that would be fine.
i get bored quickly .
have seen a few youtube reviews of the base M4 and that level of gaming ability would be adequate, from what i can tell.

the options seem endless.
i need to decide on a budget (much lower than what i have suggested on previous posts) and stick to it.
however, my track record of "sticking to budgets" is abysmal .

For the Mac Mini, you could consider so-called "refurbished" offers from the relevant retailers. Some of these retailers even offer a 2-3 year warranty on the devices.
I paid less for my refurbished M2 Pro with 16GB and 512GB than I did for the base M2 with 16GB and 256GB as new.
The device was brand new and not even activated yet.
Sometimes it's also worth taking a look at a refurbished Studio.

 

[PristineSound]

BTW, there is a new alternative to Streacom cases for those who are interested in building a fanless PC. I read about it on Tom's Hardware:

View attachment 476598

There are two versions, a copper version (pictured) and an all-aluminium version. Unfortunately the copper version (which looks sexier IMO!) is limited to 100 pieces and it is really heavy - 21.5kg (47lb). Cooling capacity is said to be 250W TDP split between CPU and GPU.

The other major bummer is that it's only available in China. So if you want one, you have to get creative.

BTW, there is a new alternative to Streacom cases for those who are interested in building a fanless PC. I read about it on Tom's Hardware:

View attachment 476598

There are two versions, a copper version (pictured) and an all-aluminium version. Unfortunately the copper version (which looks sexier IMO!) is limited to 100 pieces and it is really heavy - 21.5kg (47lb). Cooling capacity is said to be 250W TDP split between CPU and GPU.

The other major bummer is that it's only available in China. So if you want one, you have to get creative.

The styling is not for everyone though.

 

[pablolie]

...
however, my track record of "sticking to budgets" is abysmal .

In general, I think you're among like-minded people in this audio forum. It seems "end game" means "Until I start considering an upgrade when I get bored in 10 months"...

 

[Roland68]

In general, I think you're among like-minded people in this audio forum. It seems "end game" means "Until I start considering an upgrade when I get bored in 10 months"...

10 months?
You really think it'll last that long?

 

[somebodyelse]

In the case of a normal mini PC, which comes from a Chinese company such as Minisforum or Beelink... The parts are usually Standard laptop parts, so ram And drives and sometimes fans and wifi and such are replaceable...

How are they at BIOS/UEFI updates? It's something I became more aware of when Framework took ages over security fixes for their 12th gen intel motherboards - thankfully something they've improved recently.

 

[neRok]

I can definitely hear the fan in my work-issued laptop, a Lenovo T14s with Ryzen 5. I figure the layout isn't conducive for good thermals.

Laptops are definitely at a disadvantage, but they can be improved rather easily. They had us using these at my last job: https://www.jw.com.au/product/lenov...9-12900-32gb-ram-2tb-ssd-a2000-windows-11-pro

Trick #1 is getting airflow under/around the "chassis". I personally don't use the laptop screen or keyboard, so I just stick it off to the side with the screen cracked open a bit (for air flow to the top side of the mobo), and had it titled/elevated on something for airflow to the underside (eg, tilt it on a highlighter). Or if you want to go all out, get a "laptop stand with fans". A big+slow+quiet fan moving the slightest bit of air makes a huge difference!

FYI #2 is that all PC's need/want "configuring", but laptops especially. wwenze's suggestions hint at the problem, but with the wrong solution(s).

1. A problem is that a lot of ****** software does things regularly in the background, or does things on occasion. And so when these things happens, the CPU wakes up a sleeping core, starts running the irrelevant process at the lowest power state, sees that the task is taking a while to complete and thus turbos up because it can, hits a thermal limit, cranks the fans, and then the task finishes and the "hot" core goes to sleep again. So what I find helps is increasing the minimum core power state to like 20%, which helps because when that task runs, it will now start running on a core running at like 20%, which is often enough for the task to finish before it gets a chance to decide to turbo.
2. A related problem is anything "useless" taxing the CPU/GPU. In particular for Windows, I would recommend disabling various things regarding desktop transparency features and shadows. And a modern offender is MS Edge and it's "Start-up boost" ****** setting. Turn that off for big wins!
3. In the power settings (and/or GPU settings menu's), I do recommend setting whatever you can to "power efficient" modes, because it does add up. But you might have to keep some things on "normal" if you suffer with stutters/delays/etc (too aggressive wifi-sleep might cause issues for example. but that's why you use LAN cables.)
4. This is a pretty important one: GPU settings! It's actually got 2 ways to F-U;
   1. If you have "dual GPU's" (which isn't fancy), you need to make sure they working in harmony. Dual GPU's isn't fancy because most laptop CPU's have inbuilt GPU that is physically connected to the display and display outputs of a laptop, whilst the "discrete GPU" (eg an Nvidia GPU) is a "secondary GPU" and has to send it's rendered screen to the iGPU to be displayed. Where this can be a problem is when certain programs are running on the wrong GPU, or different programs are running on the both at the same time (like if you have a game/program running on dGPU in "windowed mode", then the iGPU might still be rendering the desktop etc in case you "tab to it", and thus it's making HEAT).
   2. Whatever your GPU situation, you need to make sure that your GPU is working properly with regards to "hardware acceleration" of video playback! I have Ryzen 5950X CPU, and used to have RTX 2080ti, but I got rid of that and slotted in a lowly Intel ARC A310. For the first couple of weeks I was scratching my head why everything was so bad, and it was simply because Firefox was disabling HW-Accel for reasons, and thus any tab I had open with any of sort of video (ad's can be videos), was being decoded on the CPU, and even though my CPU is very capable, it still sucks to hear the fan speeding up from 20% to 25%!!! I can't handle that noise!

If you do all these things, you will make any shit PC more usable. My HTPC is a MeLE Fanless Stick PC, and it's quite old and was always quite shit with it's J4125 CPU, but after getting everything in order like explained (particularly disabling desktop effects, ms edge background, and ensuring gpu-accel), it goes fine (even opens a youtube video page within a few seconds, which is no small feat lol). If you are buying a new cheap mini-PC, then stay away from older J4x and N4x CPU's at this point, and stick to Alder-N and newer CPU's (the cheapest being 4-core N95/N97/N100/etc (same shit, different bucket))

 

[neRok]

I have an i7 build with a Noctua fan, a fanless GPU, and fanless power supply. It's as silent as a mouse's fart behind the wall, even when pushed some.

Yes, gamers need all the cooling they can get with some super resource intensive titles... but like others, I am not a gamer. My rig is super-fast for all I need in amateur photography and even some video editing and AI video encoding (but not with the most advanced forms of the latter, but hey, that's what cloud services are for).

There is a "gotcha" these days (no matter the performance), which is that the fans can and will ramp up at the first hint of a "sustained load". AMD Ryzen CPU's are particularly bad for it because they "run hotter" (use more watts) than a similar Intel CPU (it's to do with the ways Ryzen manages RAM and IF etc), and so when they then do all these "micro-turbos" whilst you're just doing normal tasks, then that's often enough to get the fans to spin/ramp for a few seconds. So is what you need to do is reduce the amount of triggers, but also tweak any fan/heat settings you can regarding "hysterics" (response time). Simply put, they are extremely agressive by default, and so if you turn them down (like put to slow or 3sec), then that's often enough for the fans to not react to "blips".

the "semi-fanless" idea is appealing.
i dont do gaming, currently, but may want to one day as my good lady pointed out. (i tend to change my mind quite a lot)

I'm at the point of fuck it — just drill a hole through the wall and put the PC on the other side of the wall! Any cable can do like 2m, so it's not a problem

Edit: This "cable" idea is easier/better than ever thanks to how good the latest-and-greatest USB is (USB 3.69? 4? Thunderbolt? dunno exactly where it happened). But the point is, good quality USB-C cables can transmit a lot of data, AND power, and that means you can send 1 cable through the wall that can then "split" and do keyboard, mouse, monitor, and USB hub.

Actually, I have an Intel N100 PC, and my Gigabyte monitor has an in-built KVM with like "10 watt" PD (power delivery), but I have plugged that "15W" mini-PC to the monitor only via 1x USB-C cable, and the keyboard and mouse go to the monitor, and it works! And whilst I rate this capability/advancement/tech, I think it could (and might be) even better using just PoE (power over ethernet). It's getting the point where you can/could a "computer" in to a PoE point, and the PC then hubs out to a few USB devices, and everything is "connected" and "running" over nice and simple L-V cables.

I run a water cooled desktop with 200mm slow fans and it makes noise although the low frequency fan noise is acceptable.

Hoses through the wall!

"Crazy PC cooling" isn't a new idea. I like "underclocking" these days (ie, getting the most you can from as few watts as possible), but if you want to cool in crazy-efficient ways, then there are lots of avenues to explore.....

 

[dasdoing]

So is what you need to do is reduce the amount of triggers, but also tweak any fan/heat settings you can regarding "hysterics" (response time).

It seems fan curves are very outdated. they made sense with older hardware, but modern CPUs are all self-protecting.
My "fan curves" are just straight lines that kick in very late. min rotation starts at 87C and at 92 degress all fans are on full power. never ever got thermal throttling