Noctua NH-D15 Settings

[ThePrussianPrince]

So, the noise has been annoying me recently when it comes to my CPU cooler. The Noctua NH-D15 is pretty quiet, up until it hits 70-75 C, where it starts to run at 1500 RPM. That's unacceptable for me, it's way too loud at that RPM.

As a solution, I'm thinking about doing 2 things:

1. Going into BIOS and setting the CPU fan to Silent.
2. Using the low noise adaptors that came with the Noctua NH-D15, so the fans run at max 1200 RPM compared to 1500 RPM.

What do you think?

On an unrelated note, is my i7-4790k 4.4 GHz @ 1.26v fine currently if it hits 75-80 C after 10 minutes in prime95 26.6 Blend? Thinking about pushing it even further since it only gets to that during stress testing, then again it will further increase noise and temps.

EDIT: What confuses me currently is that while looking at the Noctua NH-D15 official page, it says the maximum fan speed can be reduced from 1500 RPM to 1200 RPM with LNA. But then if you click on the NF-A15 link it says that it reduces it from 1200 to 900. That's super confusing, which one is it then? Regardless, obviously it's running at 1500 RPM at max thanks to HWMonitor, so it'll be reduced to 1200.

[Abula]

NH-D15 fans are 1500rpm version, the retail are 1200rpm, not sure if you added another or maybe the newer versions are coming with the 1200rpm fans.

Play with the bios and even with Gigabyte software see if you can lower it down some. Personally i prefer other brands because of this, but the NH-D15 is a very capable cooler with good fans on it, should be fine.

[ThePrussianPrince]

NH-D15 fans are 1500rpm version, the retail are 1200rpm, not sure if you added another or maybe the newer versions are coming with the 1200rpm fans.

Play with the bios and even with Gigabyte software see if you can lower it down some. Personally i prefer other brands because of this, but the NH-D15 is a very capable cooler with good fans on it, should be fine.

Yeah, I'm just using the fans that came with the cooler. Nothing added.

I'd rather not use software to control fan speeds, by the way.

The questions still remain:

1. Set CPU cooler to Silent in BIOS?
2. Use the LNA adapter that came with it?

I'm thinking about both of these but I'm not sure if any are a good idea.

[Vicotnik]

I would use the adapter as a last resort. It's just a resistor, and using a resistor is an inefficient way to slow down a fan.

[ThePrussianPrince]

I would use the adapter as a last resort. It's just a resistor, and using a resistor is an inefficient way to slow down a fan.

Right, but what other options do I have?

Setting it to Silent in BIOS is the only thing I can think of, which I will do. Though, from what I've seen, it still gets to 1500 RPM even in that mode at 70-75 C. So it doesn't help that much, only when it's cooler. Is there any other setting that would allow me to limit RPM somehow? I can't find it in the BIOS.

As I mentioned before, software is something I want to avoid as well.

If there's something else other than the LNA adapter, it would be great but I haven't been able to find it.

[Abula]

Things that you can try,

1) Cross check the cooler is seated properly and the contact with the paste is adecuate, sometimes too much hurts, sometimes too little hurts.

2) Your temps are high, but not out of what i experience with my 4790K, but usually its the turbo being ran at 4.4 and the voltage the motherboard puts on the cpu that makes it reach those temps, you could try disabling the turbo or limiting to not all cores at the same time, close to 4.0 you should get much lower temps and personally i don't think you will lose to much on gaming. On my 6700K i dont ever pass 65C with the fans at 550rpms, but my motherboard doesn't allow turbo to be ran on all cores at the same time (my msi used to on my 4970K), with all cores on load it sustains 4.0.

3) Test the LNA adapters, it should drop the 1500rpms to 1200rpm curve, but do know that you will get higher temps for this, as you are just nerfing what the fan can achieve, but should be quieter as long as you can live with the higher temps.

4) Read your bios manual, and check the voltages on the CPU, if you can ran lower voltage on 4.4ghz you will get lower temps, probably at the expense of stability, but this is something that you need to play around until you find a stable settings. Personally i no longer do this, as i believe intel does a decent job with their voltage settings, that said on silicone is a lottery, so you can always tweak it somewhat. In some motherboards, manufacturers overvolt just for safety, and this creates more heat, so crosscheck this also.

5) As a last resort, you can try deleding the cpu, a lot of people have found more than 10C drops just by doing it.

[ThePrussianPrince]

Things that you can try,

1) Cross check the cooler is seated properly and the contact with the paste is adecuate, sometimes too much hurts, sometimes too little hurts.

2) Your temps are high, but not out of what i experience with my 4790K, but usually its the turbo being ran at 4.4 and the voltage the motherboard puts on the cpu that makes it reach those temps, you could try disabling the turbo or limiting to not all cores at the same time, close to 4.0 you should get much lower temps and personally i don't think you will lose to much on gaming. On my 6700K i dont ever pass 65C with the fans at 550rpms, but my motherboard doesn't allow turbo to be ran on all cores at the same time (my msi used to on my 4970K), with all cores on load it sustains 4.0.

3) Test the LNA adapters, it should drop the 1500rpms to 1200rpm curve, but do know that you will get higher temps for this, as you are just nerfing what the fan can achieve, but should be quieter as long as you can live with the higher temps.

4) Read your bios manual, and check the voltages on the CPU, if you can ran lower voltage on 4.4ghz you will get lower temps, probably at the expense of stability, but this is something that you need to play around until you find a stable settings. Personally i no longer do this, as i believe intel does a decent job with their voltage settings, that said on silicone is a lottery, so you can always tweak it somewhat. In some motherboards, manufacturers overvolt just for safety, and this creates more heat, so crosscheck this also.

5) As a last resort, you can try deleding the cpu, a lot of people have found more than 10C drops just by doing it.

1. I'm pretty sure it's seated properly and the paste is fine. I've reseated multiple times, and removed and added new paste (the one provided with the cooler, Noctua NT-H1) quite a few times before. It's always similar results if not the same. I'm not the best at this, but I think I've done a decent job. Bare in mind ambient is ~30C, so that could have a significant impact I imagine.

2. I disabled the turbo and set the CPU clock to 4.4 GHz manually, as well as the extra power saving features (followed this guide a while back: https://youtu.be/up0sZl26ei4). I don't just game (I also stream), and besides, for the games I play, single core performance is what's most important (Paradox Interactive strategy games, StarCraft 2, Total War). So, dropping the performance is not an option either, sadly.

3. I'm probably going to try the LNA adapters then. It's extra cables, more stuff can go wrong, it's not efficient either but I don't seem to have another option unfortunately.

4. I've always done manual voltage settings because auto simply doesn't work for me at all, the motherboard always wants to supply too much voltage to the CPU. Thankfully, I caught it pretty quickly. It wanted to deliver 1.4v+ to my i7 4790k, which is definitely awful.

5. I'm aware of delidding but I have a couple of issues with it. It'll void the warranty, and if I mess it up (which, bare in mind, is not difficult considering my abilities) I could be without a CPU. So, I wouldn't do it because of those 2 reasons.