I’m looking for a way to make my newly acquired (2nd hand) NUC5i5RYH silent. The stock fan is not terrible, but definitely not silent. I’ve looked on different fanless cases, mostly from Akasa, but it’s very hard to get a cases (not in stock) for a 5th. gen NUC in Europe. I did only pay 100$ for the NUC, so a 150$ case, does seem to make much sense. If I’d get a newer NUC, there are way more options, but I have one concern in particular. Power usage. My ROCK uses approx 7 watts when running. The TDP says 15W, so maybe I can expect about half of that when using s ROCK. That’s not a lot. Some of the newer 12th generation NUC’s has af TDP of 65W, and that’s to be expected with 12 cores and god knows what tech Maybe a bit overkill to run a ROCK, but there’s very little price difference compared to a used 7th or 8th generation NUC.
Anyway. What I’m trying to say here is, can anyone recommend a fanless case for a 5th generation NUC at a reasonable price, and does of you who has a newer powerhouse NUC’s, ever measured the actually power usage under normal load?
My Core runs on a custom-built fanless PC based on a mini-ITX motherboard and a desktop class i5 8600K processor. Not long ago I got a UPS for this PC, together with my router and the ISP-supplied cable modem. While monitoring the UPS I see a draw of 22-26 W total, with the Roon Core playing music to one endpoint. All six cores of the CPU run at the min speed of 800 MHz.
I’ve played around a lot with NUCs and other bits to minimise power consumption. NUCs are near impossible to get to/near 5w.
The lowest i’ve found are laptops - the good thing with those is the the innards are basically NUC - same CPU etc, and if you choose the corporate models the same Intel LAN so ROCK plays nice (but you still need a USB keyboard for install!).
I’ve settled on a HP Elitebook 840 G6 - 8th gen intel quad core, Intel LAN, M.2 SSD, upgradeable RAM. It’s also a vPro one so I get remote access in a browser. Was £200.
Now it gets interesting - I can get it below 2w idling in Windows Pro or Server screen off with 64GB RAM, 2TB M.2, wired LAN and Roon Server running. ROCK uses more power - it’s optimised in terms of being a minimal install, but certainly not the lowest power (i’ve seen this across multiple platforms with ROCK).
To be clear - no criticism of ROCK, they’ve optimised for stability and reliability which was the right call, but if you want lowest power, go laptop with Windows.
Recommended: Thinkpad X or T series, HP Elitebook, some Dell Latitudes. All seem about 200-300 on ebay in good condition with 8th or 10th Gen quadcore.
Windows - if you go this route, add just one account and don’t enter a password. That way it will boot straight into Windows after an update and restart Roon Server (this is not set as a windows service, so you need to be in the desktop for it to load).
At my work, we have a lot of broken laptops laying around for parts, and I can basically take whatever I need. Some of them work perfectly fine, except the screen is cracked. I can attach an external monitor and install whatever I need that way.
My main concern with using laptops are fan noise and Windows. I don’t like windows, and I just went from a Mac mini M1 as a dedicated Roon Server to an older NUC 5th gen. running ROCK. The Mac mini is as silent as any commercial computer you’ll find with an actual fan, and unless you stick your ear physical to the chassis, you can’t hear it 10cm away. Except for a few smart alarm clocks, everything in our house is Apple, and I’d like it stay that way for convenience and to avoid windows. I could try the laptop router with ROCK, and as it is total free for me to try, I’ll maybe do that. In a perfect world, I could install ROCK on the Mac mini and call it a day
Mine is silent - I think that’s 2 things … That particular HP is meant to have good cooling for the type, and I think the one I bought had been sat in a drawer for 2 years so was very new (no worn out fans). Second is I don’t use DSP/resampling etc, so it’s not doing a great deal. It’s also metal cased which may help, but it really is massive overkill CPU power wise after the scan phase.
I ran on a 4th Gen Intel Mac Mini for a while - that was silent too, under 2w with the standard 256GB SSD and a 2TB SATA one. I changed because you definitely felt the performance lagging (50k track local library). That was actually lower power on Windows (!) but I ran OS-X giving me the option to dip in if I needed to use OS-X for anything.
Like you i’ve access to old laptops (and ran on an ex-work Thinkpad X1 for a while), bought the HP for the vPro as we don’t use that at work.
FYI running Roon server on the same laptop over Debian was very close to Windows for power use. I’d just stick with what you know/like, disable everything not needed (remove wifi/LTE cards etc) and leave at standard settings (the low power modes KILL peaky performance and make no difference at idle), Windows is easy for me (Visual Studio sub so licenses are ahem free for these uses) and I use it at work
Maybe a bit overkill to run a ROCK, but there’s very little price difference compared to a used 7th or 8th generation NUC.