I have a nuc 11tnhi7 as a ROCK and am rather tired of the fan noise.
Would like to fit it in a fanless case but here in the UK am struggling to find one that fits the spec - lots for nuc 12s and 13s with i7 and lots for NUC 11 and lower with less than an i7 processor.
I literally just restarted my 10i7 NUC , it whirred for about 2 minutes , as the db loaded, and is now silent . It is currently on my desk so i hear it if it makes noise , it simply doesn’t.
Maybe ask the question about what you are doing , Many zones?, DSP? are you stressing the processor.
Have you taken @Rugby advice and cleaned it out , I assume it’s a couple of years old being an 11i7. Some users schedule 6 monthly cleans, a lot depends on the location.
The simplest way to silence it is to move it, you don’t need access to it , the BIOS can even be set to restart on power resume in case of power cuts. Hide it in a cupboard, all you need is a ethernet point or a long cable
I’ve been using a very overkill HDPlex case for a while now.
The upsides is that it’s got enough capacity to cool twice your NUC, and that fit and finish is nice. Downsides are that it’s more expensive than a number of the other options, bigger than it needs to be, and that because of the heatpipes, it’s not the easiest thing to build.
You’d also need to check with the company whether or not your specific NUC is compatible (they’re not the best when it comes to keeping those details up to date).
What MUSE settings are you using? Are you using high bit rate DSD with equalisation (either PEQ or convolution filtering)?
I also have a NUC11TNHi7 that I use for my Roon Server (running ROCK for about 8 months and more recently Roon Server on DietPi. In the latter case, the NUC also acts as my Plex server and offers a couple of other services as well. Even when running 4 different Roon Zones (with convolution filtering on at least two of them), the NUC does not break into a sweat. Temperatures stay in the high 30’s or very low 40’s and the fan is never audible. I have never felt the need for a fanless case.
For reference, I play FLAC/PCM with sample rates up to 192kHz. I am unable to get Roon Server utilisation to be significant. I can get Roon Server to use higher processor utilisations by transcoding to DSD 256.
I can get the fan to turn on due to high(er) processor utilisation by, for example, transcoding to DSD 256 on a couple of zones or by using the NUC to host a chromium web browser showing the Roon Now Playing display on its HDMI output with songs that have timecoded lyrics - Under theses circumstances, with the processor utilisation climbing dramtiacally, temperatures can reach the mid 60’s and the fan will turn on.
If you really do want a fanless case, then try the Akasa Turing case (2 available from stock at Amazon at time of writing):
However, I would first be inclined to investigate and understand why the NUC is getting so warm in its current case that the fans turn on. If it is due to expected high processor utilisation because of your MUSE settings then fine - get the fanless case. Otherwise, fix the high temperatures first.
Very many thanks all for all your helpful suggestions
@Rugby rugby Rather naively I had never thougtht about dust - so I cleared it all away @Wade_Oram I have turned off the MUSE settings you mention
Unfortunately the fan is still as noisy
So the real question is why the high temps?
I have 62,000 tracks in my database but it should be able to cope with that. The fan noise is when the track is changing - not every change - I do have it set on random for the 62,000 tracks. It’s particularly noisy if its an album that I have only recently added.