Hi, I’ve just purchased an 11th gen ( the one recommended in the Rock page ) intel i7 nuc and installed 16gb Ram and a Samsung 980 SSD, all good so far. Then I come to install the current Version of Rock onto the machine and after install the fan ramps up to quite an audible level. Can I ask is this normal behaviour when first setting the Nuc up due to collating library etc or is there an issue somewhere. I had to shut it down thinking something was causing over heating and didn’t want to damage it. I’ve installed Roon Server on a Mac mini in the past and never had these issues and everything is brand new equipment wise.
Fan isn’t going to damage anything and isn’ta sign of anything going wrong. Mac mini and NUC have very different cooling approaches. Let it be, see how it is once it’s up and running post-scan in your normal usage. My fan runs all the time but sits in my server rack with other whirring things. If fan ever dies I’ll replace the fan or the case, probably the fan as they are cheap.
Yes, it will run the fan during the cpu intense Audio Analysis phase. Options are to: Set Audio Analysis to On Demand, which is what I do. Or, limit the number of Cores being used (done in settings library).
Seems a bit of an issue when you can hear the fans quite loud, haven’t plugged it in since. Considering the case has ventilation on 50% of the sides, compared to the Mac Mini which hardly has anything apart from the design which was perfect for Roon, it’s a shame you couldn’t just put Rock straight onto a blank Mac mini.
You don’t say how many tracks you have but the initial scan can be very cpu bound which generates heat which then turns up the fan(s) to increase cooling.
You won’t damage anything unless something is severely wrong with the build but there are usually hardware (bios) triggers in place to cut power when cpu goes beyond a safe threshold. Let’er rip!
On the topic of mac vs pc. Apple has done an amazing job with both convention cooling and “silent” fans in all their designs. Additionally, Apple uses a lot of aluminum which is a good heat sink unlike plastic. For this reason, a Mac will be naturally more quiet than a PC unless you specifically spec a PC to be quiet (like using a be quiet! case or low noise fans). If you’re coming from Mac to NuC, well, now you know why a lot of us put that thing in a closet
Thankfully I listen in another Room and generally use headphones, it’s a good job really!!. I think I’ve got around 50,000 tracks in my library mostly flac.
I’ll add that there are BIOS settings you can tweak to control CPU speed and fan noise. Here’s Intel’s page on it.
Many of us stick these things into places where fan noise isn’t an issue. If you can’t do that, it’s very reasonable to play with BIOS settings to get it where you need it to be. Your i7 is almost certainly fast enough to do just fine with fan control set to balanced or even quiet.
Given that the preferred result is to keep the NUC / ROCK topologically close to your core switch, ya might as well keep it physically close as well, many of us have our router, core switch, or both in a closet / basement / out of the way place. I feel for those who are not able to simply run ethernet from their core switch to their most “important” endpoints, but that’s straightforwardly what you gotta do. Sometimes, in some situations, with luck & the right WiFi infrastructure, WiFi will cut it. It does for me in some locations in my house. Once you’ve made this call, having a noisy fan is a non-issue.
Now that’s a fan that probably would make a nightmare listening experience, mind you years ago I ran Amarra on a Mac Pro tower and thought nothing of it. Interestingly I didn’t really notice the fans in that ever, and ran that for a few years without any fan noise. Like has been said Apple put good fans in their kit.
Well the large fans Ive heard were whisper quiet. The larger the fan the slower the rotation speed needed to move air. The smaller the fan the faster the spin needed the louder the fan.
Core switch don’t say there’s something I’ve missed!!. Well I only have the core attached to the router and one Roopeee endpoint in my bedroom, so I probably don’t need something so extravagant (that’s until someone comes along and says actually you do!).
Si le ventilateur fait toujours du bruit il faut ouvrit le boitier du nuc et le dépoussièrer. Si il est encore bruyant il alors faut le changer le ventilateur (20€ sur amazon ou Aliexpress). J’ai procédé ainsi avec mon NUC (NUC 5 i3RYH) et je n’ai plus aucun bruit.
I set up ROCK on a NUC12WSHi7 a couple of weeks ago. I do not recall if I heard the fan during installation, but I did not have a local library.
Last week I installed a second disk and copied my collection (~400 discs) there. I heard the fan for some time after the copy completed and discovered the ROCK was analyzing the library. I set it to use all cores just to get the scan over with and after some time it completed and the fan eventually stopped.
In regular listening I have never heard the fan engage, although I am not using any DSP.
