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How to make the Framework Desktop run even quieter
- therein 1y agoSo just use Noctua fans? That'd do it.
- evanjrowley 1y agoIt's more than just the Noctua fan. The fan grille is a contributing factor to noise [0]. The new design features in the article could reduce the noise of any 120mm fan. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32923226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32923226
- traceroute66 1y agoIts been a while since I looked into "just use Noctua" for $another_use_case, but ... Isn't the problem with Noctua (and similar "silent" fans) that they don't offer the same airflow throughput as their noise making bretheren ? So sometimes its not as easy as "just use Noctua" ?
- hnuser123456 1y agoNoctua makes 2000rpm and 3000rpm max variants of the NF-F12. Otherwise, through (over)engineered geometry and materials, their fans usually do push the most air volume and pressure at a given volume level, with a more pleasant sound profile. But you pay for it.
- tempest_ 1y agoWorth noting that you are also paying for the service. I have RMA'd many fans through them and the experience is quick and painless every time.
- lawn 1y agoFor some applications such as cooling of an extruder for a 3D printer Noctua fans indeed don't offer sufficient airflow. But I don't think that's an issue for computer cooling unless you're talking about extreme circumstances.
- Aurornis 1y agoNoctua fans are quieter than most for a given airflow level. They have a range of fan speeds going up to very high speeds. Many people doing modifications will substitute a lower airflow fan for even more noise reduction, which might be why you’re thinking they flow less. That’s a function of fan choice, though. Noctua fans perform very well on a noise-adjusted basis.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- m463 1y agoI think noctua fans are just better fans, noisewise. They have better airflow design and sound dampening/isolating screw mounts. I think the idea about reduced airflow might be backwards - most systems use PWM to spin the fans based on CPU or system temperature. This means the systems get the airflow they need. Also, they make larger heatsinks + fans for certain systems that allow the same airflow using a larger, slower spinning fan. which means less sound. that said, there are some noctua fans that can spin faster than others.
- forsakenharmony 1y agoTheir big fans do push enough air, the small ones are questionable If you're looking for 40mm or 80mm you're better off with sunon maglev or similar
- khaki54 1y agoWell the fan in the Framework desktop is some kind of purpose built high performance Noctua fan that is significantly louder than usual. So they are suggesting to use the new grill with the fan that comes with it so you don't encounter throttling.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoThis guy has built a completely silent version: https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/monochrome-2-my-custom-fanless-7-5-l-strix-halo-system-completed.20177/ https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/monochrome-2-my-cu...
- jeffbee 1y agoThat's a very cool hack, but there are tons of things on a system that aren't the CPU that would benefit from some moving air. A fan somewhere in the system that just moves a bit of air would, I think, really contribute to the overall longevity.
- solodolo 1y ago[dead]
- whalesalad 1y agoWould be wicked if it was one of those passive cooling systems that create movement of air just via temperature differentials
- wkat4242 1y agoThat wouldn't necessarily be silent though.
- ses1984 1y agoIt’s more likely to be quieter than a fan.
- PeterStuer 1y agoPassive convection flows would not be audible.
- bryanlarsen 1y agophones and iPads are similar and can get fairly hot, and they last a very long time if you replace the battery occasionally.
- al_borland 1y agoIs Framework planning to ship this at some point? It seems pretty bad to need to print your own grill when Noctua collaborated on the project.
- kurante 1y agoThis isn't a problem. The article says that this is only if you're looking to trade-off performance for less noise: > In other words, we would only recommend upgrading to the NF-A12x25 G2 if you seek to lower noise levels as much as possible and if you are willing to sacrifice the maximum performance headroom in worst-case scenarios that the G1 HS-PWM fan provides.
- GrayShade 1y agoIt doesn't say that: > In addition to redesigning and testing the Noctua fan grill, we also evaluated various other scenarios. These included replacing the NF-A12x25 with its G2 variant and incorporating an additional 8cm fan for exhaust purposes.
- murderfs 1y agoThat's for switching to the NF-A12x25 G2 fan (from the G1), which has a lower max RPM. The improved side panel appears to be a strict improvement.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- turtlebits 1y ago"The safety standard suggests that ventilation openings on case side panels need to be less than 5mm in diameter. " Appears that it doesn't pass safety guidelines, so this is one way to get around that.
- denkmoon 1y agoNo, they changed the grille to adhere to the standard. Very clearly stated in the very next sentence.
- jeffbee 1y agoThere is no way the EMC situation is maintained with that modification.
- moffkalast 1y agoFramework lets you buy bare mainboards, if you can't run those on your table without the radio police swatting your house then they wouldn't be allowed to sell them anyway.
- ses1984 1y agoThere’s more to it than that. It’s better for the longevity of the components to be shielded, and the noise it gives iff could bother you in your home, in terms of wifi, Bluetooth, etc interference. I practice electric guitar at home and I don’t want an unshielded computer near me when I’m doing that.
- mhb 1y ago> It’s better for the longevity of the components to be shielded Can you say more about this?
- ses1984 1y agoI tried to find sources to verify and it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I just assumed that shielding your components from EMI would shield them from voltage spikes due to EMI. It does shield you from bit flips due to EMI. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10805927 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10805927
- jeffbee 1y agoReverse voltages from stray fields can definitely kill a gate.
- 1y ago
- wren6991 1y ago> It must be noted that customer safety and EMC requirements for the mini PC, a standalone electrical item, differ from those for hardware components (such as the PSU) designed to be inside a PC case. The safety standard suggests that ventilation openings on case side panels need to be less than 5mm in diameter. ...but it's a plastic panel? I don't understand how this helps with EMC.
- InitialLastName 1y agoIt's a safety standard, so the requirement is "toddlers can't get their fingers stuck in the fan".
- ginko 1y agoWith the all-flat layout of the Ryzen APU and soldered memory I always though the framework desktop MB would be ideal for a single waterblock covering the entire MB.
- hk1337 1y agoI would really be interested in desktop if so many items weren't non-upgradable. It's bad enough the CPU and GPU, but understandable, cannot be upgraded, you're stuck with the selected memory at purchase too. Even the laptops have up-gradable memory and that's typically where you would see memory soldered to the board.
- reactordev 1y agoYou lack the knowledge of the AI Max chip. You can’t have slots. It requires soldered memory because it’s unified.
- Dylan16807 1y ago"because it's unified" is definitely not the reason.
- hedora 1y agoHere’s a unified AMD with an NPU, and socketed ram: https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-ser8-8845hs https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-ser8-8845hs Note that it’s two generations old, and the newer ones have soldered ram.
- ben-schaaf 1y agoEvery AMD and Intel APU has had unified memory for many generations, as have mobile devices. It's sad how many people Apple's marketing has misled about something that's been standard in the industry for ages.
- wpm 1y agoIt requires soldered memory because no one makes LPCAMM2 modules for LPDDR5x
- Dylan16807 1y agohttps://www.cdw.com/product/lenovo-lpddr5x-module-64-gb-camm-7500-mhz/8066991 https://www.cdw.com/product/lenovo-lpddr5x-module-64-gb-camm... https://www.cdw.com/product/crucial-lpddr5x-module-64-gb-lpcamm2-3750-mhz/8317578 https://www.cdw.com/product/crucial-lpddr5x-module-64-gb-lpc... They do.
- haunter 1y agoToo bad the most recent fanless Nvidia card is the RTX 3050 6GB, wish there was a 4060 8GB released https://www.palit.com/palit/vgapro.php?id=5147&lang=en https://www.palit.com/palit/vgapro.php?id=5147&lang=en
- PeterStuer 1y agoTechnically the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition is passive. It would rely on server case airflow though.
- atonse 1y agoOnly slightly off topic but I sincerely wish Noctua was everywhere else in my life. Like I’d love for them to make my HVAC system quieter. Or table fans. Or car air conditioners. Just about every fan in my life would be better if Noctua redesigned it. They’d be like Dolby, but for making LESS noise.
- samplatt 1y agoMy brother's car/camping fridge's compressor fan died. He replaced it with a Noctua. It's 1/3rd the volume and actually has slightly MORE airlow than the 20c 90mm fan that was ziptied to it from the factory.
- atonse 1y agoAmazing. So even if Noctua themselves just made larger general purpose fans, we can add them to places ourselves.
- sneak 1y agoI bought some custom molded earplugs recently and I got 3 sets - two are completely sealed off and are very nice for when I wish for peace and quiet and don’t need to hear or speak. I also use noise canceling mode on my airpods pro quite often. The advantage is that it works even when I’m in an environment I can’t control, like an airport or waiting room.
- darkamaul 1y ago
- logicprog 1y agoIts really cool how, despite the core chip at the heart of the Framework Desktop not being that extensible, Framework went out of their way to make the FD as extensible and modular as possible, and are fostering a community of 3D printing stuff around it.
- nodesocket 1y agoNocuta is a case study in how to make a high quality and luxury product to dominate a seemly small market. In a seemingly commoditized market where fans can be had for $3-$4 Nocuta still demands and get's $30-$40 dollars.
- 0xbadcafebee 1y agoThe case study results would be "make a product that's really hard to make and that people want"
- nodesocket 1y agoFair, but sort of my point. Make a extraordinary superior product in a very niche market and educated consumers will pay. Sure, there will always be uneducated or just "frugal" or cheap consumers but they are the fringe. Example are luxury brands such as Mercedes or Rolex. A hot take, but can't be denied as well Apple.
- newsclues 1y agoTHE RGB fan makers are the ones making the real money.
- wink 1y agoNot sure I agree here. Yes, maybe it's 10x the price (which I doubt in the first place) it's actually performing very well, measurably. I don't know how you benchmark a Rolex vs a Seiko for 500 bucks. That is luxury to me. And yet it is perfectly fine to argue a Casio for 10-20 bucks performs just as well.
- distances 1y agoI don't think they dominate. Noctua used to be the best, but current reputation as far as I've seen is that the performance isn't necessarily better than the competition. You buy them for durability and supporting the engineering, but most (not some/fringe) DIY builders choose a cheaper brand. It's a bit more pronounced in CPU cooling towers, they are solid blocks where durability doesn't play a role. Noctua is good but the top performer and market leader is Thermalright which costs a third of Noctua.
- rubiquity 1y agoGotta give it the old Noctua and blow on that thang. Their fans are seriously awesome. I didn’t believe the hype at first until a Ryzen build was 5-15C cooler, and a lot quieter.
- orliesaurus 1y agoAside: any chance to load a real GPU like a 4070 or 5070 in this system, maybe even on the side?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Marsymars 1y agoA GPU like that wouldn’t fit in the case and kinda defeats the purpose of getting the included mobo/CPU/iGPU combo... so why are you trying to make a discrete GPU work with that PC at all rather than just getting mini-ITX system with a standard desktop CPU?
- orliesaurus 1y agoSometimes you want the option of having an external graphics card for that extra boost, especially because I foresee buying a computer and being able to use it for more than like 1 or 2 years. And most video games that I have been playing start lagging really hard 1 or 2 years after my computer was built
- Marsymars 1y agoYeah, it just doesn’t seem like the Framework Desktop is really the right starting point for something where you’d want a discrete GPU; you’re basically throwing away the cost, advantages, and specialization required to build a Strix Halo desktop in the first place.
- throawayonthe 1y agothe motherboard does have a 4x pcie slot, but the default case wouldn't fit a second gpu you can buy it without the case: https://frame.work/marketplace/mainboards?compatibility%5B%5D=desktop_ai_max300_amd https://frame.work/marketplace/mainboards?compatibility%5B%5... P.S. the igpu in this really is comparable to a 'real' gpu in performance, with the bonus of being able to allocate arbitrary amount of vram
- 1y ago
- neilv 1y agoI loves me some Noctua. I suspect that the very quiet single 120mm is enough to keep air moving sufficiently through my 3090 GPU server chassis (though I also put a couple 80mm where 4U chassis airflow narrows in the rear, just to be safe). I also put Noctuas in short-depth 1U servers and routers at home, usually 40mm.
- sneak 1y agoIf I were that concerned about noise from my computers, I would leverage the inverse square law and put them in another room and use long video and input cables.
- Koffiepoeder 1y agoIf you use HDR 4k or even 5k screens and are looking for a decent framerate, the maximum cable length is quite short (on the order of 3m for an UHBR10 DP40). There exist solutions for that with active cables or optical cables, but that quickly gets expensive and complicated.
- thehias 1y agoSo much work just because AMD can't create a good APU like Apple with the MacMini! WTF!
- vicwiller 1y agoNot surprising that Noctua is the favorite Buy it for Life producer from Austria by far: https://bifldb.com/austria/ https://bifldb.com/austria/ Congrats.
- rollcat 1y agoAustrian companies also seem to be both overrepresented and the entire top ~30 of the pile. I like Noctua bit I smell bias.
- IgorPartola 1y agoI have a 3D printer I bought a few years ago and I keep it in my office. It was quite loud as is and I sent through the process of quieting it down. Fans were a big part of it. It has four of them: power supply, main board, and two on the hot end/extruder. Noctua was what was mostly recommended, but (a) price and (b) at the time I believe they mostly or only had 12 volt fans and this printer ran on 24V so each fan would need a voltage converter board. Well turns out you can get quieter and cheaper fans on e.g. Mouser or Newark that are 24V compatible. They let you sort and filter by size, voltage, noise level, and volume per minute so I found the quietest possible fans that still move roughly the same volume of air as the stock ones. The price was half to a quarter of equivalent Noctua fans (excluding converters) at that time. From what I hear (pun intended) Noctua makes a great product both functionally and aesthetically, but don’t overlook industrial suppliers either.
- rtkwe 1y agoDid you also stat out the static pressure? It's an important factor I don't see you mention and a lot of people over look it. It's especially important on some of those fans because the ducting and cooling they're pushing has restrictions and need a fair amount of static pressure to maintain the rated CF/M. Quieter fans generally have a lower static pressure rating too so you might not be getting the CFM you think for fans like the part cooling fan that has to push the air through the ducting around the head.
- igravious 1y agothey said "volume per minute" so, yes, they were getting the CFM they wanted
- bradfa 1y agoCFM is a measure of volume moved, generally quoted at effectively zero static pressure. Zero static pressure is rarely reality. All fans will have a static pressure vs airflow curve, which will vary based on the design of the fan. I doubt normal people have the tools to measure fan CFM, especially when mounted into a product or enclosure, so presumably the OP was going based on stated specs.
- bullen 1y agoMeanwhile in another dimension: http://move.rupy.se/file/nuctua_radxa.png http://move.rupy.se/file/nuctua_radxa.png (spelled it wrong I know but too late...)
- xbar 1y agoNoctua was founded and operates in accordance with my values. I valued what they offer before they were in the market and was overjoyed to buy their products as soon as they were available. Raspberry Pis, repurposed HP DL380s, personal art projects... anything that ever needed a fan--if it didn't use Noctua fans before I started and there was an application for a Noctua fan, a Noctua fan was applied. Fan quality is one of the metrics I evaluate when I purchase products. Great fan solutions in products are good indicators of great design.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agoWhy was solodolo's comment killed Fanless is heavy and expensive but IMO it's worth it considering all the problems with fans, including noise and longevity There is nothing wrong with solodolo's comment, unless I am missing something Personal experience with fanless is the computer indeed gets used for more years than ones with fans "Industrial" computers are often fanless Not every computer is used for playing graphical video games
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y agoIt looks like their account was banned, though they only have a couple comments before that one. I can't tell you why it was banned.