The virtually silent N2100

[getmythe]

Hi Guys!

we all know that the N2100 is way to noisy and tends to get really hot. Here's my solution for these two issues. The first one will make your Thecus whisper quiet (no more fan noise only HD noise remaining) The 2nd one will get the temperature down by 4-6 Deg Celcius (a dual 400GB WD setup running at 55 degrees is now at 49 degrees under full load at 24 degrees room temperature).

The silent treatment: Replace the internal fan by an 60mm Pabst 612 F/2L (16dbA only!). Requires a 40mm to 60mm adapter plus some nuts and bolts. I bought the material in Germany (PM to get address of online store). Here's what the result looks like:



The three wires are passing through the pinhole of the wireless antenna connector! You may need to remove the three pins from the connector with a needle and pass them through the hole. The connector itself is to big to fit through.



This mod on it's own will not reduce the temperature. For this you need to drill a couple of holes in the casing, which of course will void your warranty. I used a 6mm drill to make holes in the front spaced 8mm apart (pre-drill with a 1.5mm drill first to avoid the 6mm one to slip). Afterwards I used a saw to connect the individal holes and a file to smooten everything.



Now air can flow much easier through the case and it is directed right towards the harddrives. The final step will be to make some shielding such that the leds cannot be seen through the air vent (still tbd).

cheers
Leo

[N2100Owner]

The adapter seemed to fit perfectly against the chassis. Could you tell us the brand and make of it?

I saw a couple of these ...

Com-trade.de


Coolpc.com.au


Nice Job

[leyton01]

I looked at doing this before I went with an internal cooling solution.

I measured it out roughly and you should even be able to fit an 80mm fan (more airflow/quieter) by piggy backing a 60mm to 80mm adaptor. To prevent it from sticking out too far I was going to mount a thermaltake combo fan to the 80mm adaptor with most of the fan sitting inside the cone (if it was able to fit):
www.thermaltake.com/product/DCfan/Combo/a1780/a1780.asp
(note that you could cut out most of the frame of the fan without affecting it to much)

You haven't mentioned it but did you cut out the plastic bars that normally cover the stock internal fan? This would improve air flow if you haven't done so already.

Another idea is to run the cable in the cone itself into the case - you can then use the hole for the antenna to mount a manual fan controller with its dial sticking out the whole - eg:
www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=70&code=017
This allows you to increase the cooling in summer or make it quieter when it is sitting idle.

[getmythe]

I do not know the brand of the fan adapter, but I can tell you that it is the dark blue one. I do have that one fitted on my silver thecus box, the black one pictured in my post is identical except that it is transparent. I got both from pcsilent.de in Germany.

As for increasing the size further with a 60 to 80mm adapter: forget about it. Have a closer look at my first picture and you will notice that with a further increase you block access to the ethernet and usb ports (not to mention the reset button).

For my silver box (equipped with one 300 Gb WD only) I did cut the plastic bars protecting the internal fan. Not much of a difference though. You can't hear the fan even at max speed since the drives make more noise.

[leyton01]

The fan would sit far enough out so that you would still be able to easily plug in the USB or ethernet.

The bars are quite restrictive, I would not be surprised if it helped lower temperature by 1 degree purely by allowing better air flow.

[oreos]

Hi,

I actually had the same idea and it works like a charm. In order to be sure this thing will run smooth I actually bought two fan adapters, one from 40-60mm and then one from 60-80. The 40-60 adapter is asymetric so that after fitting the 80mm fan the box can still stand on it's feet. I used a 80mm adaptable Papst fan with 12dB and just hooked it on the board.

The outcome is: when the box goes into idle mode which it finally do with the new firmware) you can barely hear the fan, even if you are standing right next to it at night. Over daytime it is almost totally silent. The RPMs do not exceed 850 in "high" mode and the temperature is in the mid 40s during usage (around 6-8 degress cooler than before). I did not cut out anything from the box in order not to mingle with warranty.

I believe this solution is the best for effective silencing but makes the box look a bit "odd" from the back.

I will post some pics later today.

I bought the adapters from:
www.com-tra.de/shop/de_DE/produkte/lID_is_691_and_Fan-Adapter.html;jsessionid=0E735BD90C76CB7C9B6C8A695D721938

and the Papst fan from a local retail store.

Once again my appeal to Thecus: Please design the box in a larger housing to fit an 80mm fan with improved air intakes in the front. This won't cost you almost anything in production and will make the box much more professional. I would easily pay an additional 50 Euros just to upgrade the housing to the new one. I would bet more people from this user group would do the same.

[mwk]

A lot of NAS vendors are designing their chassis with aluminum, and they don't have a fan at all, such as Qnap TS-101 and WD NetCenter. This is good for reducing the noise, since all the noise will be from the HDD. The main draw back (IMHO) is that the case (TS-101) is hot to the touch (around 45 degree Celsius at full speed), and chassis has to stand in a up right position for maximize air flow thru the air duct.

With a bigger fan, the N2100 will sure to quiet down a lot, and the chassis will have to grow in size. I wonder what temperature will be with the stock fan.
I have two Hitachi HDS721680, and Web shows 44/42 degrees celsius during standby.

[oreos]

Here the pics for my post above:











Hope this helps

[marty]

I got a ADDA Hypro Fan AD0612LX-G76 (6cm) and a fan adapter (4cm to 6 cm). Now the box is running VIRTUALLY silent. Now I see the temperature in the high 30s and low 40s.

Thanks for the great idea getmythe.

[kobi78]

Hello,

I've also an Thecus N2100. It is a really great machine.
My mod is the same like oreos. The 40 mm fan is really to noise an he has not enough airflow. On the other hand, I now, that when I take a 60 mm fan, the noise will be lower but the airflow is also not enough because I would like to have temperature lower than 40 degree Celsius. So I decided me to take a 80 mm fan and two adapter. Before the mod, I had 40-50 degree Celsius now I have under full load about 1-2 hours 36 degree Celsius and the fan is really silent.
But notice! You get the temperature down only with a fan with enough airflow. It won't be better if you take a fan which is very silent because he has a very small airflow. I use a Pentium 4 fan, he has at full power 2500 rpm. The most time the fan is at 1600 rpm when I use my N2100 harder, than the fan is at 2000 rpm and I never see that the fan is going to 2500 rpm and the highest temperature is 37 degree Celsius. I think that the fan has 35 m³/h / 19,1 CFM at 1600 rpm and 45 m³/h / 25,4 CFM at 2000 rpm and when the fan is going to 2500 he has an airflow 55 m³/h / 32,4 CFM.
He has enough reserve because the next summer is coming soon.

I use 2 S-ATA 320 GB disks from seagate.

Best regards!

[rookie]

Getmythe, I like your different approach of this cooling modification, looks nice and not to hard to do.

[kobi78]

I've changed the fan in a Sharkoon S802520L-3 (80*25*80) with 2000 rpm max an 43,2 m³/h / 25.4 CFM.

This fan is little bit more silent and he s running at 1300 rpm if the box isn't working. Than is the temp 26-27 degree celsius. When the box is working @75-100 % cpu load (scanning virus), than the temp is going to 39-40 degree celsius (the disks) the system has 37-38 degree celsius and with this temp and the setting normal in the system, the fan is working with 1600 rpm. When I switching to Power/Hight than the fan is running at 2100 rpm.

The box is now really silent!

[kobi78]

Hi,

now I've finished my silent Thecus N2100. I've changed the following thinks because there are some problems with the firmware fan control.
I have installed a Sharkoon S802525M-3 !Attention, this Fan has two buildings under the same number, one has a NTC and the other one hasn't a temp sensor (NTC).
The Problem is, that the NTC (temp sensor) is to low (12 KOhm) I've tested it and the fan was to fast. So I decided me to take an other NTC and I have now a 22 K NTC von Conrad. Te problem was, when I connected the fan with the 3 PIN molex on the Thecus Board, so the fan rpm is going up and down with the temp. but after 3or 4 hours the fan rpm was nearly 0. So I realized, that the Thecus firmware is changing the power for the fan but I have all over the time the high button in the fan setting activated. So I decided to take a continuous power supply. And with this resolution is the fan control (rpm) working. So I take the power connector so can see it on the picture (i have no picture from the NTC, this cable is going true the air channel and is between the harddrives) The best is to connect the head from the NTC with the harddrive and than it will be better to isolate him to the flowing air (for example with electrical tape):


Now is the fan very silent and the temp isn't going higher as 38 degree celsius (at CPU Load 100% over min. 3h)

[brianjg]

I took this one step further and removed the internal fan altogether. I then fitted a speed reduction cable

www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=1&ModuleNo=32288&doy=10m1

and also bought a 120mm fan

www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=1&ModuleNo=45439&doy=10m1

I then positioned the fan directly above the drive area and cut out a section of the top cover. Originally I only drilled it out but this cause a lot of wind noise. I found the best solution was to place the unit on its side with the fan pulling how air out.

I've 2 500GB SATA/300 drives running RAID1 and they never go above 36 degrees. It's as quite as my 750GB USB drive and as its under my desk I'm not worries about how it looks. I'll take some shots tomorrow and post em up.