I have an Intel NUC 11 Pro with an i3 processor with 8 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD running ROCK Version 2.0 (build 1474). A couple of weeks I noticed that the fan started spinning up randomly and very audible. I first assumed it was the NAS which is in the same room as the NUC as the NUC’s fans never were at a noticeable volume level before.
Settings in Roon were not changed also: Background audio analysis speed and on-demand audio analysis speed are both set to fast, since the initial setup.
In the bios I set the the fans to quiet and the temperature levels are between 50 - 60 degrees but the fan still spins up quite frequently. I do not know if it started after a specific ROCK update or not but I am wondering if others have made similar experiences recently.
I noticed my fan cycling on and off, also. So I took it apart and cleaned it and reapplied the thermal paste (as I have an older Gen 7 unit, the paste was dried and crusty). That seemed to help, but it is still cycling, just not as loud/often.
You might try cleaning it?
Also, I set my analysis to throttled as that should be enough for mine due to only adding albums rarely. I only use “fast” when I initially set it up or when adding lots of files.
Thanks @bearFNF for your reply. Maybe there is some underlying change in one of the recent builds that pushes the temperatures more.
I did change the background audio analysis to throttled but I cannot get to the fan of my NUC. Maybe I’ll try again later but I could not get the mainboard to move even with all screws removed. But at least the exhausts all do not seem to suggest high dust levels. The NUC is also relatively new.
If the NUC is getting that warm then I would expect the fans to start running.
However, if a NUC 11 Pro with an i3 processor is regularly getting that warm, I would suggest that the NUC definiately needs cleaning as @bearFNF suggested above (although it is probably not old enough to need the thermal paste re-doing - paste should be good for between 6 and 8 years).
For reference, my NUC11TNHi7 running ROCK (up until about 9 months ago) or DietPi (last 9 months) is dead quite all of the time and runs at temperatures (depending on ambiant and workload) of between 26 Celcius and 35 Celcius.
Caviate: By the standards of many here, my library is very small (~1000 albums) and I also have the ‘Background Audio Analysis’ set to ‘throttled’:
Edit: Another caviate to my experience: I do not use playlists - in particular, I do not use Smart Playlists. Because I don’t use them, I don’t know whether this is significant or not.
Thanks for the reply. I will try to get access to the fan again but yesterday’s endeavour was a little disheartening
The temperature levels were also a surprise to me, as the machine should not be under any load really. My Roon setup is so straightforward with only single endpoint use that the CPU should not be working very hard. I disabled Intel’s Turbo Boost feature and took some other performance throttling steps in the BIOS, so maybe that will help too.
The suddenness this happened though is what is causing me to think there might be some underlying change in Roon server software that is putting more pressure on the machine but I do not know if that is the case and as no one else really commented on this thread makes me think it might be a more isolated issue.
I am not aware of any change that significant that has changed with respect to the Roon Server software itself or the RoonOS operating system that you are running within the last couple of weeks but I do not run early access. There have been two early access builds within the last month - Build 1471 on Oct 11th and Build 1474 on November the 7th. Assuming, you updated to these as they became available, then the first would appear to be too early to be the cause of your issues and the latter would appear to be too late.
If thoroughly cleaning the NUC heatsinks and fans does not help, it may be possible that there is some database corruption that means that your NUC spends much more time (and processor utilisation) doing library scanning and analysis than it should do.
You say this started happening suddenly a couple of weeks back.
If, using the RoonOs Web UI (usually http://rock), you stop the Roon Server software, do the fans stop running after a while (and does the unit cool down to the point where the fans turn off)? If so, then for some reason the Roon server software is causing the heating because of some (unusual) load that it is putting on the processor. You could try disabling (temporarily) background and on demand audio analysis. If that makes a difference, then this analysis would appear to be the culprit.
If stopping Roon Server does not make any difference, then I would be looking at hardware issues of some sort - possibly the thermal bonding between the processor and the heatsink but possibly some other issue. Unfortunately, RoonOS does not provide any tools to help diagnose such issues.
Do you have database backups from before that time? If so you could try restoring one of the older ones. If that fixes the issue, then, other than losing any tagging and playlist editing (performed within Roon) during the intervening period and loosing a bit of your play history, you should be good to go.
Alternatively, if you don’t have a backup that old, then an alternative test would be to reset your database (from the RoonOS Web UI). Make sure that you have a good backup before you do this.
Resetting the database will not lose your Tidal/Qobuz favourited albums/tracks. Nor will it lose any playlists created in Tidal or Qobuz. However, it will lose any Tagging and playlisting that you have performed within Roon and it will, of course, loose all of your play history.
If resetting the database fixes the issue then you can continue with the reset database or, if you have lost tag and playlist editing that is important to you, you could try restoring from the backup. If you restore from the backup and the temperature issue returns, then you will know that it is something to do with the database. In this case, I suspect that the only option will be to reset the database again and live with the loss.
Thank you @Wade_Oram for the detailed list of suggestions.
I did open up the NUC again just now and the fan was not dusty at all.
I did change these settings in Roon and also did some performance throttling in the NUC bios itself as described above. These changes do seem to help. At least I have not noticed the fan spinning up as loudly afterwards. I will need to check the thermals again to see if the NUC is also operating at lower internal temperatures because of that.
Thanks for the suggestions. Especially option 3 would be a last resort but for now I am hopeful that the bios and Roon server changes are enough to keep the temperatures and fans in check.
When I updated to EA1474, Qobuz got stuck trying to sync my already synced library. I rebooted and this didn’t work. I disabled Qobuz and rebooted. I then enable Qobuz which then did a quick sync and everything was back to normal.
Thanks for you reply also. I think that was not the issue on my end. But whatever it was after disabling Turbo Boost the system runs as quietly as before.
Likely metadata updates it does they have been causing issues with other users maxing out single core process. Next time it happens check you Roon logs and see if it’s running any metadatasvc tasks. I noticed these correlated to my system being unresponsive and one cpu being maxed out. When it’s finished it’s back to normal. This would make the fan go into overdrive like in your case.
Turning off Turbo will help at the cost of extra speed in other processes and likely masking the true problem. Issue like this are why I moved from Rock so I can better monitor what the pc is actually doing when Roon decides to have a fit. It’s always RoonAppliance service I see as the problem.
