I have a 13th gen. i7 NUC Pro
I want to cut unnecessary power consuming parts, parts that add to internal heat (fanless case) as well as avoid other unwanted possible influences.
Can I safely remove the WiFi card from the mainboard without compromising stability of the system?
Or is it enough to disable WIFI in the BIOS and the WIFI-card then is completely shut off, both “radio”-wise as well as the power fully being fully cut off of the small PCB?
Then I have some more BIOS options - which ones can I disable?
HD Audio (I mostly use RAAT via LAN, maybe sometimes multichannel via HDMI)
The reason for asking is the fanless case: it’s completely closed, only the processor, two integrated circuits and the NVME having contact to the case for passive cooling.
So whatever I can get rid of / shut down inside that case, that produces heat, helps.
Second reason: I have a great linear power supply, that delivers up to 4A. The more I can shut off on the PCB, the more reserves I do have.
A bit of background on that: the NUC I am using, actually calls for 19V/6A.
For the fanless case by Akasa I am using, a thermal related value called TDP must be set to 28W in the BIOS, otherwise the processor would heat up too much and throttle.
With that setting, I still have enough CPU power to perfectly run Roon AND the advantage of cutting down power requirements under 4A - so I can use me very good PSU (its Ampere-meter shows my 1.5-2.5 A on the most demanding playback scenarios, and 3A on importing jobs, with some spikes of 3.5A).
So, whatever “power eaters” I can shut off on the PCB - be it hardware or anything unnecessary for running ROCK - the cooler the NUC stays and the more power headroom I have for demanding processing tasks.
I also have a NUC in Akasa case, disabled everything i don’t need in bios (audio, wifi, bluetooth, …) and physically disconnected the wifi module (not removed). Don’t think I touched the GNA thing.
Thanks! May I ask, what you mean by “physically disconnected”? I had to remove the two tiny cables for the antenna, of course, when I pulled the PCB from the original chassis.
My WIFI module sits right below the NVME, in what looks like a mount type similar to that of the NVME, just shorter. So I can either leave it there or pull it.
You can just take it out, exactly like a NVME card. It should have no impact on operation. I’m not sure it will draw much on idle though - see here for a typical card: Microsoft Word - FCC,IC statement.docx. showing 5 odd milliwatts.
OEM case on a NUC7i7DNKE, I just unchecked the WiFi board in the BIOS setting to leave it unpowered, but left it in situ, to ensure I don’t lose, if I was to physically remove it.
its been a while but if I remember correctly, I disconnected a light grey wire that was between motherboard and wifi module and taped it somewhere to the side with electrical tape. physically disconnected was maybe a bit strong, i probably did the same as you. one wire is for wifi i think, other one for bluetooth.
Thanks - since I took the motherboard out of the official enclosure and moved to a fanless case, I already had disconnected all wires to the board, including those to the WIFI/BT module (antennas are fixed in the enclosure).
made me smile!