Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

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Tilltech
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Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:36 pm

It's almost like a handheld vacuum cleaner!

What the hell is going on, wasn't this suppose to be one of the quietest air coolers around? Are people lying about Noctua?

The case is Fractal Design Mini C.

Abula
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Abula » Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:55 pm

Noctua has to caveat with a lot customers, not only the ones that like quiet pcs, thus the fan they use NH-A15 PWM 1500rpms (only the cooler has that version, retail is 1200rpms), can get loud if you push it at 1500rpms, but if you are not overclocking its not needed that amount of cooling, and you should be able to drop it down on bios/software where its inuadible, the fan can drop around 300rpms, but my suggestion is place it around 500rpms where it will help with the spikes that today's cpus have when browsing, watching videos, etc, and set it up to ramp to around 1000rpms or less for it to be quiet (not inaudible) on load, say 80C or whatever you feel comfortable, most of us here accept higher temps for lower noise, but its a balance that only you can decide.

Tilltech
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Fri Oct 27, 2017 12:24 am

Maybe I should get another Silent Wings 3 140mm to replace that fan?

All other 3 system fans in that case are Silent Wings 3.

CA_Steve
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Oct 27, 2017 7:08 am

Maybe you could post the rpm profile of the fan and temps seen?

Tilltech
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Fri Oct 27, 2017 8:21 am

CA_Steve wrote:Maybe you could post the rpm profile of the fan and temps seen?
How can I do that?

All the fans are set to work at 50% for 30C temp, with 3 increments of 10-15 up to 60C temp.

CA_Steve
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:53 am

First, 50% is a pretty high number for idle temps...chances are, you wouldn't need to run the cpu fan at more than 50% speed while the CPU was loaded. I'd aim for minimum fan speeds @ idle if you want inaudible performance.

We can debug this/improve the sound profile if you can provide:
- the motherboard/part number and how you are controlling the fans (mobo bios, mobo windows s/w, other)
- the CPU part number
- what temps you see at idle and load with the existing fan profile.

temperature monitoring: there's a couple of methods...if you are using your motherboard's windows s/w for fan set up, temps will be shown there. If you aren't, there are a couple of windows apps. HWMonitor, OCCT, etc.

Tilltech
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Fri Oct 27, 2017 11:12 am

Honestly, this is driving me up to wall, I splurged all this money to get the most noisy PC I've ever owned!:

Define Mini C
MSI Z370M gaming PRO AC mATX
G.SKILL 16GB Trident Z DDR4 3200MHz CL16 kit.F4-3200C16D-16GTZB
Intel i7 8700k
ZOTAC GTX 1080 8GB GDDR5 ZT-P10800E-10S
BE QUIET! Straight Power 10 600W CM
NOCTUA NH-D15S
SAMSUNG 500GB 960 EVO M.2 PCIe 2280 MZ-V6E500BW
Silent Wing 3 PWM fans - 1 x 120mm, 2 x 140mm

I overclocked it to 4.5GHz which is quite modest, and I don't intend to go any further. I used this profile, but instead of 1.245 core voltage I selected 1.225. I set everything up in BIOS, but I use MSI's Command Center to monitor everything.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?? You wouldn't believe how noisy it is!

lb_felipe
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by lb_felipe » Fri Oct 27, 2017 12:35 pm

Your setup is slick and supposed to be very quiet. I have an NH-U14S which shares the same fan model of yours, and at 500rpm it's kinda quiet.

I'm interested in you case, so I'll monitoring this thread.

CA_Steve
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Oct 27, 2017 12:55 pm

So, what temps you see at idle and load with the existing fan profile?

Abula
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Abula » Fri Oct 27, 2017 12:59 pm

I still think you should run it stock first, before OCing, test it and play with CPU fan profile, the NF-A15 PWM is a good fan overall, you just need not to drive it that high. But very important to me to stablish without ocing a noise/performance setup in all settings, specially fan curves, after that you can slowly start doing your tweaking in ocing the setup and see your results in temps and slowly increase the rpms of you cpu fan until you find the place you are willing to live.

Btw a lot of Coffeelake motherboard have what they called "Enhanced CPU" (other manufactures might name it differently), what it does on my MSI motherboards is that it allows the CPU to go to the max turbo clock speed that intel allows, in this case is 4.7ghz, but intel rule this for one core, with this setting its allows on all cores and the voltage is increased as well, this is the main reason you see so much variation in website reviews in temps and performance. So crosscheck this setting on your bios.

Btw MSI bios fancontrol is very good, you should be able to drop it down very easily, just go into bios then hardware monitor and then make sure you are looking into CPU_FAN, then play with the graph as you please, do some testing with different settings, i usually spend a good hour or two tweaking this, but once i set it i never ever touch it (unless i flash to a newer bios).

Tilltech
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Sat Oct 28, 2017 5:06 am

CA_Steve wrote:So, what temps you see at idle and load with the existing fan profile?
I have not seen load temps go beyond 60C, even during the stress test performed by the Intel Extreme Tuning utility. I' already disabled all turbo features.

The idle temps are like this, and the cpu fan curve is this. The Noctua fan is the only loud component in the system, when it is below 30%, the system is completely silent which is not acceptable, 30% load is not realistic for 80% of the time you are using the computer, I assumed it would be quiet under 70% spin.

Be warned, Noctua is an absolute piece of garbage, and I am appalled at how many places are they recommended.

CA_Steve
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:16 am

A couple of things come to mind...

1) Are you using the included low noise adapter cable with the fan to reduce max rpm from 1500 to 1200?
2) If you run the Command Center, does it's fan settings overrule whatever you set up in BIOS?
3) If your CPU load temp stays under 60C during stress testing, why not lower your fan profile settings so the fan runs slower? You've got some room to play with...70C stress load is certainly fine for an OC'd CPU.

Maybe something like: 1st point @ 50C/25%, 2nd point @ 60C/35%, 3rd point @ 70C/50%, 4th point 90C/100%. See what happens...adjust as needed.

Abula
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Abula » Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:21 am

Tilltech wrote:
CA_Steve wrote:So, what temps you see at idle and load with the existing fan profile?
I have not seen load temps go beyond 60C, even during the stress test performed by the Intel Extreme Tuning utility. I' already disabled all turbo features.

The idle temps are like this, and the cpu fan curve is this. The Noctua fan is the only loud component in the system, when it is below 30%, the system is completely silent which is not acceptable, 30% load is not realistic for 80% of the time you are using the computer, I assumed it would be quiet under 70% spin.

Be warned, Noctua is an absolute piece of garbage, and I am appalled at how many places are they recommended.
Nocuta is not garabage by any means, it might not be the best but they make decent fans, as a matter of fact they have one of the best PWM implementations on the market. SPCR still ranks very highly their old NF-P14.

Now lets go into your setup, 70% of 1500 = 1050rpms (not always matches it depends on how the PWM was designed), but that should be your borderline on load, i would try a little lower still. IIRC MSI has 12.5% increments on bios (could have change on this new mobos but thats what i have tested), so i suggest you try the following for starting,
PWM
50C - 37.5% PWM
60C - 50% PWM
70C - 62.5% PWM
80C - 75% PWM
After that save and exit the bios, and go do some testing on your usual loads, if you want cinebench runs and see how the temps and noise, and adjust the values according to your preferences.

Now if you want to move to another fan, be careful, as not all heatsinks can mount any fan, Noctua coolers like your use 140mm fans on 120mm mounting frame (or 120mm fans), to me the best fan on their sonic signature on this is the Thermalright TY147A, 300rpms to 1300rpm, it should mount the same as it did on the NF-A15 as their practically clones (without the rubber triangles).

If you wish to go BeQuiet route, im not sure they do 140 on 120 mounting frame, so you will need to improvise mounting it or removing the plastic side mounts and just overlap the clips.

Now one thing to keep in mind that no fan at 1000rpm or above will be quiet, you see bequiet a lot quieter but their range of operation is shorter, for example the BL07 can ramp until 1000rpms so practically the usable range for someone looking for a quiet build, that said, there are no magical fans that will cool of a lot more, so lower rpms expect higher temps.

Another thing to check is that sometimes software tends to overvolatage cpus, this was very present with Asus AI Suite on past gens (not sure on newer boards), i dont use MSI software so i cant say if it does or not, but check your voltages on the CPU as higher voltages will mean higher temps, and it will go against you looking to run at lower noise.
Last edited by Abula on Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

Tilltech
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:07 am

Just 5 minutes ago I ordered another 140mm PWM Silent Wings 3 fan that will replace the fan in the Noctua CPU Cooler, the default one will go to garbage.

Fucking Noctua, never again!

I knew I should have gone with the BeQuiet, as I already got all the fans and the PSU from them, all of which are silent.

People who recommend Noctua should be ashamed of themselves.

Tilltech
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:09 am

CA_Steve wrote:
1) Are you using the included low noise adapter cable with the fan to reduce max rpm from 1500 to 1200?
I was actually wondering about that before installing everything, and people generally said that it doesn't matter if you have good motherboard and PWM.
Additionally, it doesn't matter, because the noise that the Noctua fan produces is already unbearable at 600-800rpms, let alone 1200.

When the new fan arrives next week I will let everyone here know about the result, after thorough testing.

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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Oct 28, 2017 12:05 pm

nice rants - but in all likelihood it was user error and the fan was fine.

LongJan
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by LongJan » Sat Oct 28, 2017 2:38 pm

No way a Noctua fan at 600-800 rpm is unbearable noisy, unless it's faulty in some way. If so that "absolute piece of garbage" has 6 years warranty.

frenchie
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by frenchie » Sun Oct 29, 2017 5:39 am

LongJan wrote:No way a Noctua fan at 600-800 rpm is unbearable noisy, unless it's faulty in some way. If so that "absolute piece of garbage" has 6 years warranty.
^ This

If it's quiet at 30%, why don't you just leave it a 30%? The temps might not increase that much at full tilt. I used to play with speedfan and afterburner and all kinds of fan speed control devices. Now I just have all the fans going at constant slow speeds: minimal airflow is all that's needed with good modern coolers to keep the temps down.

Tilltech
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Fri Nov 10, 2017 6:13 am

All the fans now are Silent Wings 3 PWM, there was no problem mounting the 140mm on the NH-D15S.

The system is now quiet.

Noctua - never again.

BeQuiet obviously know what they are doing.

LongJan
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by LongJan » Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:58 am

Either your Noctua was broken or your new fan is running at lower rpm!

Abula
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Abula » Fri Nov 10, 2017 10:12 am

Tilltech wrote:All the fans now are Silent Wings 3 PWM, there was no problem mounting the 140mm on the NH-D15S.

The system is now quiet.

Noctua - never again.

BeQuiet obviously know what they are doing.
Either you fan was not working correctly or you didn't setup up, Noctua is not the best imo, but its far from being bad, they do make pretty good overall fans and heatsinks, to me where they lose is their color scheme and cost, but their products overall are very good. Im in the process of building a new unRaid server, and i already chosen the CPU cooler and will be NH-C14S, i still consider noctua as being a top brand, and even use them on some of my builds, just a matter that not always they turn out to be best for every application.

Btw how did you mount the Silent wing 3 on the clips, to what i remember the mounting clips have a bent ending that on the NF-A15 will just pass on the hole, but on the silentwing its a like a cilinder, did you bend the clips to fit them on the bequiet fan?

Tilltech
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by Tilltech » Sat Nov 11, 2017 7:45 am

Btw how did you mount the Silent wing 3 on the clips
They have dual mounting system,you can either choose the hard ones or the rubbery ones, which are highly flexible; they bend just enough to use that Noctua fan bracket.

gsilver
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Re: Why is Noctua NH-D15S so loud?

Post by gsilver » Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:18 am

Tilltech wrote:All the fans are set to work at 50% for 30C temp, with 3 increments of 10-15 up to 60C temp.
Which is probably why it was a problem...

I'm using a NH-D15S, and my fan speeds *peak* at 50%. At idle speeds, they're basically set to go as low as they can and still run. Runs pretty quiet and is fine for everything except prolonged Prime95.

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