You ever taken apart an Intel Nuc? I got it pretty far apart, far enough that it seemed likely if I went further I would damage it. (murphyās law) Not really that serviceable so while I am going to try and replace the fan I am not going to do so until I have replacement ready to go. Itās not 100% likely to end well based on prior experience. I did use a powerful vacuum to pull dust out of the heat sink. The interior had a very thin, fine coat of dust which I cleaned up.
This unit has about 31,000 hours of operation behind it so I canāt get too upset about replacing it. If it proves OK over the next few days I have other potential uses for it.
Will monitor. A fanless design from Asus seems attractive as long as it has an Intel mobo in it.
Any advice on resources for taking one apart without destroying it? The google search wasnāt very helpful. I much prefer written instructions, I will dig around on reddit for more information.
In the mean time I bought a massively obsolete NIB 8i7BEH and new memory and SSDs. I will clone the music library to a 2TB Sata III SSD, and the build a new installation with ROCK on an EVO990 NVME drive.
I will shut the server down tonight as I have an audio visitor tomorrow and a dead server will not be helpful.
You could pick up an Akasa fanless case. Both the 8i7 and the 8i5 use the same case.
There are videos showing you how to install.
The only scary part over what youāve probably already done is removing / installing the cpu heat sync using the provided thermal paste. Moving the microphones is also fiddly - but ROCK doesnāt use them - so I donāt bother.
It seems Akasa has a lot of options for 7th gen, but mine are 8th gen and there doesnāt seem to be anything available in their line at the moment for this generation. They donāt list the specific ones I own as being compatible with their cases. (I looked at a bunch on Amazon)
I did find the AKASA Turing 8th gen case separately by googling outside of Amazon, form factor not ideal, and it is not available any more.
You want a Turing (I think with no extra letters - model number A-NUC45-M1B) or a Plato X8.
The case kit comes with everything you need (inc thermal paste).
Iāve used both. My current 8i7 is in a Plato X8 because it fits better on my Hi Fi rack. I also have have an 8i7 in a Turing in the studio (also running room core). Both have been in use for few years with no issue.
The Plato is harder to find - but I think I saw a couple for sale. Where are you based?
I recently changed the fan on my Roon NUC. I watched a youtube video first, to give me confidence to take on the job. The new fan was under Ā£10. My NUC has gone from being intermittently ultra noisy to purring like a kitten. The job requires care with disconnecting leads into the main board, but with attention is not that hard to do.
Hi Greg,
I am in Boston, MA. (USA) Thank you so much for the additional feedback. The Plato X8 sounds like an interesting option, I need something that is not significantly deeper than the NUC but could be wider. It needs to sit on a shelf with the rest of my network infrastructureā¦
The fan in my ROCK NUC died after around 5 years of mostly continuous service, so well over 40,000 hours. I have a desktop NUC running Windows of the same age that has not had issues, but the ROCK NUC is in a location that is more prone to pick-up of dust.
When the fan increased speed during CPU-intensive tasks, I was getting a shrieking noise instead of the regular high-speed sound. At first I dismantled the NUC to clean the fan, but that did not fix it, so I figured there was an issue with the bearing. I donāt know if itās allowed to post direct links to on-line retailers, but if you go to Amazon and search on āFleshy Leaf CPU Cooling Fan Replacement for Intel NUC8 NUC8i7BEH NUC8i5BEH NUC8i3BEH BSC0805HA-00 5Vā, in the UK it is currently listed for the princely sum of Ā£10.25.
With the demise of Genuine Intel NUC, Apple Silicon iMac is a good candidate for replacement. Some additinal Apple-FU is needed to run Roon as a service.
Onboard the iMac in the normal way.
Create a second user, say Roon.
Install Roon Core in the Roon userās account.
Mark Roon Core to launch at login.
Set the Roon user account to auto-login.
Put your music library on an external APFS disk.
Double-check that Roon is not an admin.
Once all of this is done and working, the Roon Mac Mini can run headless.
Apple Silicon and the accompanying hardware may be great, but I would not touch macOS for exclusive Roon use if I had a choice in the matter.
With every macOS release, Apple gets incrementally more demanding and less friendly toward third party software. Especially if that software requires extensive network access and/or overlaps with Appleās own first party offerings.
Appleās attitude reminds me of a jokey Libertarianism meme. You are free to believe in something else, but why would you? In this instance, you could use Roon or other similar music software, but why would you? We already have both Apple Music and AirPlay 2, and they ājust work.ā
I am considering the Ferrum Hypsos dual output as my LPS for my ASUS NUC 13 i7-1360P [RNUC13ANHI700000I] ROCK - 14 threads (6 performance, 8 standard) (64GB [32x2] 3200Mhz RAM & 4.5TB 0.5tb Samsung 980 Gen3 M.2 & 4TB Samsung 870 EVO), for the OS & Music Library storage - total overkill but thatās just me.
How do you find the BRZHiFi LPS? Which model is that please? With the Hypsos I can set the V & A output to exactly as the ASUS needs but it is not a cheap option but has a LOT of flexibility & dual output means I can use it for my AI Mesh Node near the NUC (wired AudioQuest Cat 7 Vodka Ethernet Cable).
I find it fantastic though weirdly the Topton FU02 even with its stock switching power supply seems pretty exceptional in terms of low noise floor. The Linear power supply improved it that little bit more. I did try a supercapacitor filter in between but that only hurt sonics so removed it again.
A thought on the future of ROCK. Now that Intel isnāt the sole NUCbox creator, there are some very very good inexpensive solutions out there that perform great. Iād love if some of these MOCKs could become ROCK approved.
@David_Snyder recently discovered the GMKtec box, which is currently below $150 on Amazon (sale ends in a few days). I wrote up a whole post on (see below) why I think itās actually better than any of the NUC / ROCKs Iāve previously built, and even though itās technically a MOCK, it is far simpler to get running because of both no-muss, no-fuss hardware and no BIOS settings to touch than any NUC Iāve seen before. I hope that Roon begins to consider testing & approving some of these less expensive non-core NUCbox options, because they are great. Iād honestly suggest this to anyone who wants to get on ROCK these days unless they are going to do serious multi-zone simultaneous DSP on very hi-res streams.
What do you all think? Should we broaden the aperture of what makes for an approved ROCK? Or given the fact that Roon has a much less expensive version of the Nucleus that theyāre selling now, is this too much competition and will it remain a MOCK, despite all the appealing features?
I got it pretty far apart, far enough that it seemed likely if I went further I would damage it. (murphyās law) Not really that serviceable so while I am going to try and replace the fan I am not going to do so until I have replacement ready to go. Itās not 100% likely to end well based on prior experience. I did use a powerful vacuum to pull dust out of the heat sink. The interior had a very thin, fine coat of dust which I cleaned up.