Click on the Signal Path light (next to the track playing). Just above Source there will be a Processing speed indicator. If you are using less than 1% of the core, you see nothing. Above that you may see something like 88.5x.
Ah, OK thank you. I thought that there might be some ROCK monitor facility to see CPU, RAM, Network utilisation and temps etc. that I had not been able to discover.
Nope, a NUC running ROCK is a music library appliance, not a computer. 
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Thank you, yes I know and understand that ROCK is an appliance providing music library (and endpoint facilitation service and streaming service integrator), but I disagree that it is not a computer.
It is a computer; an electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program, and the fact it is an appliance for managing music libraries and playing devices does not in itself preclude it also enabling or providing hardware monitoring/reporting services, it is just that the developers choose not to.
Clearly, one of the design principals of ROCK as a turnkey appliance is that users shouldnât need to know anything about how it works internally. It should âjust workâ. I think theyâve taken it a bit too far in that direction, personally. But I understand wanting a simple solution for non-techy folks that doesnât require an OS license (like a Windows deployment would).
If you want more control, donât run ROCK. Install whatever your preferred Linux distro is and then install Roon Server on it. I run Roon on a CentOS 7 minimal system, for example, as I am an old systems admin and donât like having zero access to fix things myself.
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I am using the bios fan defaults on a NUC8i7, with a relatively small library. It ran hot with the fan blowing at max for almost 2 days while it imported all the library data. Once it finished processing the library, the fan became so quiet I can not hear it, and the case of the NUC is barely warm to the touch.
Really if they want to sell this to you as an appliance and limit official support to certain devices then they should walk that walk.
What i mean is that their software should consider that we donât want fans running while listening to music. Maybe we donât want it running full tilt while doing a library import and would prefer a slower quieter import process. Maybe we have hours we would allow for it to work noisily and others we want it to be quiet. Nothing wrong with that. My oven is an appliance and it lets me set how long i need it to run and at what temperature. My washer lets me set the cycle i want to use.
The software should have its own thermal management, cpu use management and fan management. If you want to call it an intelligently designed appliance that is.
Rather they donât seem to want to consider any of that. The appliance excuse is a good one i will admit.
Thats not nearly the same level as controlling the fan speed/cpu directly. I am talking about the level that since they support specific NUC types they can know the actual temperatures, cpu use, fan rpms and even the 1m noise level in dB. For each supported NUC type.
Just saying use one core doesnât mean that one core cannot put out enough heat to get the fan to run. Throttled may or may not keep the fan off. We donât know how throttled or what the ambient temperature of the room is. Will the fan come on? Wonât it?
What needs to be there to be acceptable as an appliance is the 1m dB level you will tolerate for two periods of time. Software can figure out the rest.
But those are the primary functions of the appliance. Your oven doesnât suggest times where electricity would be cheaper based on use rates. Washer doesnât automatically dispense detergent based on the weight of clothes and dirt level.
ROCK as an appliance just runs Roon, and Roon lets you do all kinds of things with music. But if you want to be able to muck with aspects of the computer you canât because all that stuff was stripped out as a design choice. If you really need to do that, load Windows or Linux. More specifically to noise, the Nucleus White Paper describes why they chose fanless case to eliminate noise.
So at least as far as fan noise goes, there is clearly a design philosophy behind all this.
What I donât understand is why the installation instructions for 8th generation NUCS no longer match the actual circumstances installers now face. They are close, but there are too many people getting caught by the inaccuracy of how to set boot sequence.
I have no idea why you are directing this response at me�?
I was responding to a comment that ROCK on a NUC is an appliance, not a computer, and simply pointed out that it is a computer.
I made no reference as to whether the the appliance software is as fully featured as I and others would truly like, particularly in matters of fan control and more importantly performance monitoring - and indeed it is not.
And letâs be honest, they (Roon) are not selling the appliance to me, they provide the software, and we provide our own hardware, and have the choice over a box with a fan, or one without. So we cannot blame Roon if the fan is noisy, and we donât want such noise because the choice and the fix is in our own hands.
Now the fact there is no real-time monitor giving us the option to view CPU load, RAM usage, Temps, Network load/usage etc. is a real pity, but one I can live without.
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Its not directed at you or anyone in particular. Iâm just saying that while you can put it on any hardware you want they have specified certain units of hardware as supported. For those units they can tune the acoustic characteristics in software. That would be a fully developed appliance.
Otherwise its just software that runs on a computer. You just said it can be run on many devices. If run on something unsupported the onus is on the user to tune the acoustic properties. Then it isnât an appliance. My washer doesnât require me to tinker with aspects of the cycle. Spin RPMs and what not.
I suppose now it is not an appliance?
Basically the argument for lack of fine tunability is that it is designed as software for an appliance if deployed on supported hardware. Thatâs a fair argument if then fan noise characteristics were tuned by the developers for that supported hardware.
Since it wasnât, then letâs then admit itâs software that needs to be tuned for the hardware it is being deployed on. In that case the user will need access to the data needed to self tune hardware characteristics to taste.
So the options are either tune it for supported hardware or empower the user to self tune to taste.
Neither is how it is presented.
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Well maybe unintentionally, but it was directed at me:
The fact that an appliance is not fully developed to a particular set of specific requirements, does not mean that it is not an appliance. To use your analogy of a washing machine, a ÂŁ500 machine does not have the same features and facilities as one that costs ÂŁ1000; they are both appliances.
Yes I agree with you that it could be so much better, but ROCK is effectively an appliance. The fact it does not do all you want does not negate the fact.
Fair enough. Weâll just say that ROCK is a poorly thought out and implemented appliance which cannot keep itself quiet when playing music.
We can also say then it is the $500 appliance software that is the issue. So maybe they can make a $1000 version to handle it? It seems thatâs what it would take to move them enough to think about noise characteristics when developing their software.
No. Youâll say this. There are lots of others (like me) that are grateful ROON gave us ROCK for free and donât care a whit if the fan runs. Mine is in the basement, isolated and unattended as designed. But itâs clear you donât like fan noise.
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Personally mine is in an Akasa fanless enclosure.
Also i run it on Windows.
My point has nothing to do with my personal situation. It has to do with what lengths people will need to go through to avoid the problems that some intelligent software development would solve.
It may not benefit me but it would benefit the community at large. But the special people who do special things like route the thing to their basement couldnât give a whit about anyone elseâs difficulties or at least show a concern for the state of modern technology.
Anybody who thinks simply turning down fans or switching them off is sensible is barking up the wrong tree in my opinion. I was using mini computers years ago, particularly the Shuttle brand. I was adding big slow revolving fans to make mine quieter. Others were using quiet modes and even switching their fans off. It impacted badly on reliability and the machines started to die. To some this was mysterious but to me they were simply doing too much with insufficient cooling.
If people really want quiet machines that is simple enough to do using suitable hardware. But just overriding manufacturers settings is short sighted.
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So, I thought I would throw in my experience as I recently setup Rock on a NUC8i3BEH. The NUC has a 250GB NVMe M.2 drive and 8GB RAM. Itâs been running for about 2 weeks now.
I was concerned about how loud the fan might be when I ordered it. But it is for all practicable purposes - silent. I have the latest BIOS installed and I have the fan set for quiet mode. In a quiet room, I canât hear anything from 2 feet away. Iâm really happy about that. I donât use upsampling or DSP, so unless I tell it to rescan my entire library it remains just as quiet during operation. Plus when slitting idle, it is drawing only 4watts AC.
Iâve had no issues with it. It just sits there and does itâs thing. 
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Hi there,
I got problems with my nuc8i3bek.
Referring to this thread.