Podcast #129: Keeping Your Cool With Noctua

Brian goes for another live podcast this week featuring Jakob Dellinger, the “air cooling guru” at Noctua. We have featured Noctua fans in a number of our reviews, most notably our recent “Noctua Unveils NH-D15 G2, Thermosiphon, and Next-Gen Fans” and the HomeLab45 update “The HL15 Homelab Server Goes Shhhhh with New Noctua Kit.”

Noctua has taken fan assembly to a higher level with products for everything from laptops to data centers. They pride themselves on innovation and reducing fan noise levels across the spectrum. Based in Austria, Noctua (the Little Owl) was founded in 2005 and quickly became one of the most acclaimed suppliers of premium-quality quiet cooling products that are apparently inspired by, but do not smell like, coffee.

This is another live podcast where our YouTube audience joined the conversation and submitted questions to Jakub and Brian. We are pushing the boundaries on these live podcasts, inviting our audience and guests to have a genuinely interactive conversation on topics that interest them.

After dealing with several hiccups at the show’s beginning, Brian got down to business. His first question was, “Why do people love your products so much?”

00:00 Introduction

Attention (obsession) to detail
Quality and Performance
Started as an OEM
Focused on quiet, highly efficient, quality components
Engaged with Taiwanese partner to develop cooling components

05:00 Finding the inspiration

The CEO hated loud PCs
Fix it before the machine is powered on
Recap Vince’s video series for his Home Lab (Unleash the Hush: Noctua Fans and Eaton Sound Proof Rack Combine for a Peaceful Studio)
Why are Noctua Fans beige and brow?

10:00 Scratch ‘n Sniff

Brian shares a tidbit from his youth and asks Yakub to create a fan that emits an espresso aroma
That is on the punch list
Comments from the audience
Computex
Delivering new products
- Square frame
- Fan radiator
- Socket support
- NVIDIA prototype
- Yakub goes deep

16:00 Squeezing Enterprise boards into workstations

Training LLMs
Edge servers where quiet matters
Liquid cooling
There’s a place for air-cooled systems, too

20:00 PC and Workstation case design

Thermal design
Not just for workstations
Getting creative
Let the users do crazy stuff with the fans
Heat sinks and heat distribution
Applying thermal paste
Potential to lose performance with poorly adhered heat sync

26:00 How to check for performance loss

Yakub gets into a deep discussion about cooling options
More than one option for every situation

31:00 Questions from the audience

Aftermarket contact frame
Better results from the 1mm washer mod
More from Computex
- Noctua power supply

35:00 Showing off new products

Even in the early development cycle
Family-owned and run business
No Shareholders to report to
Delivering to the customer

40:00 Cooling GPUs

DIY water cooling
Voiding the warranty
Mixed results
Preconfigured workstations seem so loud
Consumer-level cards are more advanced today

46:00 More on the HomeLab 15

Fan design
Thicker fan materials provide alternative options
Thicker may not be better
Fan size does matter

50:00 Wrap up

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4 months ago

Harold Fritts

I have been in the tech industry since IBM created Selectric. My background, though, is writing. So I decided to get out of the pre-sales biz and return to my roots, doing a bit of writing but still being involved in technology.