[SOLVED] Noctua NH-u14S

silenthunt316

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Mar 12, 2020
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hi, i just purchased the noctua nh-u14s, i upgraded from the cool master hyper 212 evo, since i have a i9 9900k, but when i installed the the cooler, i noticed that the clip thats holding the fan to the heat sink is touch the back plate of my RTX 2070. Do i need to get another cooler or its fine ?
 
Solution
Electrical tape, bad idea. Not that there's anything against the tape itself, but the backplate will get warm, the air blown through the cooler will get warm, and the adhesive on electrical tape doesn't like heat. It'll get to be a gooey mess in short order. Small piece of card stock is a much better idea.

Back plates themselves serve 3 purposes. Additional heatsink surface area, limit gpu pcb droop, and look cool. Many are even partially plastic. The most damage you'd suffer is scratching, if the surfaces of the clip and backplate actually touch. 0.1mm is a tiny gap, but still a gap no matter how close they look.

An open sided pc case doesn't have air 'flow as such. For airflow, air enters the case, traverses the gap, picks up warmer...

Mrgr74

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hi, i just purchased the noctua nh-u14s, i upgraded from the cool master hyper 212 evo, since i have a i9 9900k, but when i installed the the cooler, i noticed that the clip thats holding the fan to the heat sink is touch the back plate of my RTX 2070. Do i need to get another cooler or its fine ?

Hi @silenthunt316

Personally, I'd get another cooler. Don't get me wrong, the noctua nh-u14s is a very good cooler, but I'd be slightly concerned (perhaps needlessly) of excessive vibration over time between the cooler & the back plate of your 2070. Hows your cable management? Point being, any cables pushing against the cooler adding needless extra pressure against the 2070 & vice versa to the cooler itself against your CPU. Are you 110% sure the noctua seated fully and isn't even the smallest amount being pushed up due to lack of clearance?

If you feel everything is seated correctly & either can't/don't want to replace the cooler, then keep a constant close watch at your temps and overall performance.

How many PCIe slots do you have? I take it one since you didn't already move it to the lower slot?

How about adding a pic as it is true that a pic shows a 1000 words. :)

Let us know what you end up doing.
 

silenthunt316

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Hi Mrgr! well i just launched a couple heavy loaded games to see if it would spike up in temps, it actually didnt the opposite actually it lowered my temps significantly, unfortunately i only have one PCIe slot, i was thinking about buying a new motherboard, mine is pretty crappy tbh, well i guess my cable management is alright, and i dont know how to upload the image i have on my phone lol
 

Mrgr74

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https://photos.app.goo.gl/3vFNMXHTC2Pj26uGA heres a photo, if you need a clearer one lmk :)

That...is close. :) Even if there isn't much in the way of pressure pushing against the back plate, I'm curious as to what your temps will be once your case is closed and your system gets up to it's true temp as that cooler will be constantly blowing warm air back around the back of your 2070 as there is no space around it to dissipate the heat that the Noctua's fans will blow back against the HS . Even if one fan sucks while the other blows. Hows the rest of your cases cooling?
 

silenthunt316

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Well that’s the thing I can’t close the case, I believe I have a small case, the fan doesn’t let me close it completely. Well my pc has never over heated or anything like that. It’s just that hyper 212 isn’t strong enough for the i9 9900k. I was thinking on buyin a new mother board. The one I’ve been looking at has two PCIE slots. But if the case is the problem then I might have to get a new case. I’m stumped
 
I would not worry.
I had a similar situation some time back with a NH-D14.
I just slipped a thin piece of cardboard between the cooler and the backplate just in case there was any grounding issue.

If you want to change out the cooler, the NH-D15s is a high compatibiliity version of the NH-D15.
In particular it is offset a bit to clear backplates like yours.
It is also not as tall.
 
Now regarding the side panel. The fan is overlapping so I can close the side panel. Do I just leave it open? I heard it was better for airflow
A piece of electrical tape would do it. A good idea.

What is the make/model of your case?
If you must, it is ok to leave the case open.
If you have cats or other curious creatures, an open case might not be such a great idea.
As to cooling, yes you might do better, particularly if you direct a house fan at the innards.
I would not do that as a long term solution.
NH-D15 and NH-U14s area bit bigger than the NH-D115s.
Go to the noctua web site, they have excellent dimension diagrams so you can verify compatibility.
 

silenthunt316

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Mar 12, 2020
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well i have a dog but he barely goes inside my room, i bought the NH-D15s was too big for me, ill check out the website right now,

P.S heres the case i have = CYBERPOWERPC MASTERBOX LITE 5 GAMING CASE
 
If this is your case:
https://www.newegg.com/black-cooler-master-masterbox-lite-5-atx-mid-tower/p/N82E16811119322
the specs show 160mm height available for a cooler.
Looks like a perfectly good case.
The NH-D15s is 160mm. Are you sure you bought the NH-D15s and not the NH-D15?
Both the NH-U14s and NH-D15 are 165mm high which should not fit.
I think the hyper212 is more like 160mm.

Another good alternative is the NH-U12A which is 158mm tall.
https://noctua.at/en/products/cpu-cooler-retail/nh-u12a/specification
 
As to a aio cooler, yes, that is as good as you can do for cpu cooling when mounted in the front of the case.
But, there are a couple of negatives.

The hot radiator exhaust is now dumped into the case which will heat up the motherboard and will be supplying heated air to the graphics card fans.

The three fans on the radiator are 120mm and will need to run fast to push cooling air through the radiators.
That will be noisy.
I cool a 8600K@5.0 with a NH-D15s using a low noise adapter. Front intake is a 180mm fan at half speed.
A stress test might be 65c with minimal noise.

Is cost an issue? The kraken is 2x the cost.

While it is an uncommon occurrence, leaks do happen with liquid coolers.
A air cooler will never leak.
 
So in your opinion which cooler should I get for my i9 9900k. Cause I’m a heavy gamer
What kinds of games do you play?
If your games are cpu centric like mmo, strategy and sims, you want he best possible single thread performance out of your 9900K.
That comes from an overclock and the subsequent heat generated.
That would be a good cooler like he NH-D15s. if you want to close up your case.
If an open case does not bother you, see how you do with your current cooler plus a piece of tape.
If your games are fast action games, you might want to look at a stronger graphics card than the 2070.
For multiplayer with many participants, the 16 threads of the 9900K will do fine, at any speed.
 
So if I slip a piece of cardboard, I’ll be fine? And regarding the open panel. Is it better to just buy a new case. The one that I have is small
That is what I did.

As to the case being too small...
It holds your parts, namely, cpu, graphics card and perhaps a couple of drives.
Any case that holds your motherboard will do that.
What else will you need to put inside?

I needed a case that was no deeper than 16" to fit a space.
I bought a silverstone TJ-08e which is a M-ATX case.
The cooling is superb despite the small size.
Hot air is exhausted very quickly.
 

Karadjgne

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Electrical tape, bad idea. Not that there's anything against the tape itself, but the backplate will get warm, the air blown through the cooler will get warm, and the adhesive on electrical tape doesn't like heat. It'll get to be a gooey mess in short order. Small piece of card stock is a much better idea.

Back plates themselves serve 3 purposes. Additional heatsink surface area, limit gpu pcb droop, and look cool. Many are even partially plastic. The most damage you'd suffer is scratching, if the surfaces of the clip and backplate actually touch. 0.1mm is a tiny gap, but still a gap no matter how close they look.

An open sided pc case doesn't have air 'flow as such. For airflow, air enters the case, traverses the gap, picks up warmer gradients, then exits. The same air coming in will exit, in a flow. With open sides, that doesn't happen. You don't get flow, you get replacement. The area by the intakes pushes right out into open air, the area by the exhausts draws air from the huge gap. It's not a flow. So temps end up controlled by the ambient air, making intakes/exhausts next to useless unless the exhaust is directly behind the cpu cooler.

Removing the cover is a good way to test airflow, if temps drop drastically, it's a dead giveaway that the airflow in your case was seriously lacking or wrong, if temps barely budge the you had sufficient airflow.

But that only works really for mechanical cooling, things with a fan. For motherboard components, now there's no real breeze, no replacement of air, because there's no flow. So chipsets get warmer than usual, like Sata controllers, the pcie hub etc. Which can lead to performance issues.

Air cooling a 9900k isn't a perfect solution. The largest aircoolers are barely over 250w capacity, the 9900k stock runs over 200w and with an all core boost to 5.0GHz (very popular) will hit 250w outputs. Minimum recommended coolers are 280/360mm AIO's, with a preference for Full custom loops. 1 good render can easily tax a NH-D15S to its limits. The NH-U14/S fits in just below an average 240mm, the NH-D15 right at/just above a 240mm AIO. By comparison, the CM hyper212 series comes in at 120mm AIO, 140w (ish).
 
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