The Most Annoying Computer Noise | Noctua Engineering Deep-Dive on Case Fans

[@GamersNexus]

Watch our "Forbidden Interview" with Jakob of Noctua last year: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bmOvi56dobOch5I Watch our video (also featuring Jakob) about Noctua's pressure scan results and new Noctua NH-D15 G2: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pHWnqYyioNVglaM Find all of our engineering interviews here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pHWnqYyioNVglaM&list=PLsuVSmND84Qsv6Q_9GERaAKQ_FsQkOQ7H

[@francoisleveille409]

Gamers Nexus is getting us more and more used to thorough engineering analysis of computer equipment nobody else dares to engage in. Kudos to you and your team for this one and the other one about curving/contact with modern CPUs and coolers.

[@Gabriel-of-YouTube]

I love this only fans content!

[@ZeroB4NG]

"The most annoying computer noise" is COIL WHINE, right?

[@Napster60]

This is a lot of words to explain what a harmonic frequency is.

[@Lurch-Bot]

As someone in their 40s with mild autism and extremely sensitive hearing, it looks like younger Millennials and Zoomers simply are spoiled and have poor emotional control which is why they are bothered with shaving a quarter dB off fan noise. I certainly am not. Push-pull fans will always be a bad idea until they manage to figure out how to perfectly synchronize the two fans. They're gonna need a fifth pin on the connector. It is an aerodynamic issue and this is why all the compressor and turbine discs in a jet engine are fixed to the same shaft and run in concert, with fan timing part of the inherent design. Seems like it would be easier to just have two fan blades spinning off one motor and it would fit down into a double tower cooler like a saddle. Requires offset drive gearing, a driveshaft and generally a lot more complexity than a present CPU cooler/case fan. It isn't rocket science and this problem could have been solved 20 years ago. These days, with a fifth pin carrying an alignment signal, you could synchronize two fans electronically with modulation of the PWM signal. The fifth pin would be analogous to the crank position sensor in a modern car engine. What I see here is Noctua wasting a lot of effort to provide an inferior solution to simply having two mechanically synchronized fan blades on a tower cooler. They're running around trying to figure out what has been known in the aviation industry for a very long time. Prior art exists and there is no reason to waste their time and money getting this deep into their testing. just design a fan synchronization system already! The 'beating' he is referring to is simply called 'turbulent flow' in aerodynamics. 'Beating' is a term used in piano tuning, as is the German word, 'schwebung'. I'm getting fed up with the tech industry trying to work in a bubble, completely ignoring applicable prior work in other fields. All I see here is Noctua having a wank. Oh, well, at least Noctua realizes that liquid cooling on a PC is an exercise in stupidity.But only focusing on the noise aspect will not result in an efficient system. They are sacrificing performance for the sake of noise characteristics, when you really don't have to compromise if you truly understand the problem. It is possible to have zero beating and they're going in the wrong direction. An RPM offset is not the answer. The answer is to make the fans synchronized and they should be testing synchronization offsets here instead. You don't want the fan blades perfectly superimposed. Fan stages in a turbine engine are usually offset by something in the range of 5-15 degrees. Also, solving the synchronization problem electronically by adding a fifth pin will allow for variable offset because the ideal changes with RPM and turbine engines take a compromise approach. The next step after this would be quiet and highly effective multi-stage fan assemblies. Even variable geometry would help and not be too cost prohibitive, considering what people will pay for an AIO.

[@Deltarious]

Honestly I really love Noctua for being able to have talks like this. I guess when your business proposition is "Yes well we *are* expensive, but we are also the best and support the customer" it sort've becomes a lot easier to be honest and straightforward since you're not trying to 'hide' behind marketing to make your product feel valuable or cost competitive

[@jamesm568]

Yep, when I hear Thermalright and Corsair I think of minimum wage cheap products. When I hear Noctua I know I'm not going to get a minimum wage product.

[@md4449go]

Fans are the snake oil of the PC industry.

[@MidWitPride]

I also love how when questioned about a potential weakness of Noctua fans, the spokes person spends the next 10 minutes talking about the actual issue at hand rather than evading the question with PR speech.

[@AsheramK]

"Our spokespersons are actual engineers." is such a rare thing nowadays.

[@hedlund]

Engineering firms where the engineers are allowed to actually use their damn educations are getting rarer by the merger :(

[@julienp4563]

Thanks GN for having Jakob Dellinger (Noctua), Malcolm Gutenburg and Guillermo Siman (NVIDIA), Roman Hartung (Thermal Grizzly), Tom Petersen (Intel - currently), Amit Mehra and Bill Alverson (AMD), ... explaining real technical subject. It's way more interesting to listen engineers behind products than BS marketing.

[@TheA1ternative]

Oh it's still marketing of course, but it's more palletable from the engineer vs someone whos only specialized in sales.

[@shiftymcgee4183]

@@TheA1ternative Agree, but Steve's got our backs to make sure it doesn't turn into a circle jerk and has a pretty good bs detector for the layman so it works out haha

[@572089]

this is the best marketing Noctua could ever get. Don't pander to me with empty buzz words; explain with genuine science why your stuff is worth my money.

[@arthurmoore9488]

Agreed. Especially the "here's options to fix it, please see what works for you."

[@mho...]

right?! imagine we would hold the worlds "leaders" to these kinds of standards!

[@rrj6919]

What an amazing world we could have here, where products are showcased by engineers and designers that built them, instead of a marketing team that read from a brochure. I wish for this to be the rule instead of the exception.

[@NickyNiclas]

I remember this sound from back when I was kart racing, when someone was close behind you'd hear that beat frequency of the engines, especially at the end of the long straight. It was a reminder to try to brake as late as possible to stay ahead.

[@GamersNexus]

That could definitely be what you were hearing! For sure engines can produce these same types of hums/noises if near each other and constructively or destructively interacting!

[@gasracing5000]

On a bike you hear the sound, then feel the draft tug from behind at high speeds. The doppler effect is prominent foremost, as the sound gets higher and louder as it closes to you.

[@Squilliam-Fancyson]

Excactly. You can also here them with Formula 1 races. Live and also via TV broadcast. Especially with the V10 cars(to some extent also with the V8s) you could here that beat freqs perfectly on upshifts.(high pitched swinging sound)

[@soldiersvejk2053]

That shirts is a testament of the employee’s authenticity.

[@Legion-495]

Showing true colours c:

[@sMv-Afjal]

​@@Legion-495Nics

[@EVPointMaster]

​@@Legion-495austrian... associated with the color brown... 😨

[@twannerrzz]

Should've been beige and brown

[@jakobschneider558]

I have one too. They are comfy af. And you get a handwritten card with personalized text too. Written with a brown marker (what else right :D).

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

Fun fact: This beat frequency is also useful if you're tuning an instrument. If you strike a tuning fork and play a note, the beat frequency will tell you how off you are!

[@EmptyZoo393]

Try tuning a piano. I got an actual piano wrench to take care of some of the worst notes in lieu of a full tuning, and it is incredible to hear those beats as the notes come up and down in and out of tune. You'll be hearing it a lot, as those pins are incredibly precise to rotate. I also learned that professional tuners harping on getting quality tools isn't them being snooty; you have to rotate the pins an incredibly short distance and the flex from an Aluminum shafted tool is enough to throw off your "how far have I turned it?" reflex.

[@ChrisM541]

That's true and an excellent aid. On the guitar if you pluck an open string and hit its harmonic on another string you'll hear the oscillations as you tune into and out of pitch. Very useful for tuning without an electronic tuner...as long as the initial reference tuned string is correctly in tune (you're tuning the remaining strings off of this). You'll end up repeating this process till all strings are at correct pitch/in tune with each other.

[@kaelananderson9237]

It doesn't even strictly matter if the initial reference string is 100% correct, if you're playing by yourself. If you get the first one vaguely tuned by ear, so long as the others are in tune relative to it, it won't sound off (barring, I guess, a listener with "perfect pitch"). Even if you're singing along you'll generally adapt with little effort to fit the guitar's tuning. If two guitarists are playing together, the absolute tuning still doesn't matter so much as long as the guitars are in tune relative to each other. The trick I learned is to tune low E, then compare each successive string, open, to the previous string at the 5th fret (except the second-to-last, B, which is on the 4th fret of G). Then you can compare the two E's to validate. I guess this is what you mean by "its harmonic on another string", but this is an easy pattern to remember.

[@bligh1156]

​@@kaelananderson9237 No, he literally meant the harmonic, common way to tune is hitting harmonics on two strings and tuning ti match them. Convenient in some scenarios since you don't need a hand on the fretboard, the harmonics still ring out.

[@plaisthos]

It also known as wolf tone on string instruments like Cellos and is undesirable...

[@nomadic_shadow]

These technical interviews are by far my favorite of your content. There's so much to learn and its really cool hearing all the details.

[@svarthofde2492]

So it was not all in my head. The other voices are relieved...

[@Desugan69]

XD

[@thumbwarriordx]

Protip you can also brute force this effect away by running any fans mounted in parallel and adjacent with each other ~150RPM apart without any of this fancy new control stuff. I learned that from an article about the big fat Mac pro cheese grater. Tho obviously this increases the noise floor of your system for a given amount of air moved, but in theory the noise is less annoying. The RPM mode in fancontrol is super convenient but it will also bring out these issues by calibrating the fans to run at the same speed if you don't include offsets.

​@@thumbwarriordx I didn't find the solution on an NH-D15 or the basic fans on an aio where I ended up replacing x3 with x6 nfa12x25 and the silence is there without this crappy reasoning, and or very light and not annoying.

[@simoSLJ89]

I'm not crazy! You're crazy! Especially you Nappa!

[@thumbwarriordx]

This is like... the exact solution they discuss in the video but with less precision.

[@TheArthias]

Always happy to see more Jakob!

[@kss1089]

In the aircraft propeller world, we fixed this issue by adding synchronizers and synchrophasers. We make the props spin at the same RPM, have the same blade angle, and adjust the blade passage over the fuselage. Different seats will be louder or quieter depending how the blade passages over the fuselage add or subtract. Just like how he explains.

[@alesksander]

turboprob planes? Or i imagine for jet engines is same theory essentially?

[@arthurmoore9488]

From an intuitive perspective, the closer you get the RPM the longer the time between beats. Which, for other, is what you're talking about. I think that's just down to tolerance. A 10 RPM/fan tolerance means you can have up to a 20 RPM difference. With aircraft, things are much more precise so you can get much closer RPMs.

[@ericmollison2760]

@@arthurmoore9488 He's saying it's perfectly and consistently synchronized. At least while cruising. There's a big difference between high end fans and aviation. According to wikipedia, synchrophasers not only match rpm but the propeller positions. Unfortunately this will only cancel noise in certain locations and it may be louder in others, but at the same time there will be no noticeable beat. I would like to see Noctua try that though. Seriously I would. I suspect it is actually doable with hall effect sensors that tell the exact timing of each revolution and a tiny microphone or two mounted on the cooler. A very cheap microcontroller can analyze the data and do a training much like memory training.

[@Vegemeister1]

@@ericmollison2760 I bet the 2 pulses per revolution from the regular tach wire is already plenty. Fan impellers have quite a lot of inertia. Fans could have a special daisy-chain connection that would use a feedback loop to control the speed of the downstream fan to sync with themselves. You might even be able to synchronize fans purely in software on the host CPU, provided you can think of a way to work around the limited resolution and sample rate of the RPM readings from the super I/O chip.

[@sleepy_dobe]

The dedication that Noctua demonstrates to their craft is.....just sheer indescribable. Just for a little fan.....the amount of research they do on it. Makes me appreciate my NH-D15 even more.

[@JanoschHu]

german engineering! It dosent matter if its "Simple" as a fan. See: if you dont put that much dedication to a fan, how can you be good at the compostion from the fan and the things it got mounted to?

[@LanPartyPCGHX]

​@@JanoschHu Noctua is an Austrian Company.

[@Saiyyg]

@@JanoschHu gErMaN eNgInEeRiNg!!! damn you give me vibes like you appreciate 300€ case with wireless phone charger(that cannot even charge a flagship) rather than 420mm aio compatibility on the top

[@Nathanielcameron]

Everyone's gotta specialize in something!

[@p0xygen]

​@@LanPartyPCGHXbasically Germany

[@solominded]

6:00 My man, 10rpm tolerance is more than just tight, that's straight legendary.

[@tuniwien9426]

If you think about it: 10 rpm that's like AT MOST one extra round every 6 seconds. While they literally do more than 40 rounds every single second.

[@johanekekrantz7325]

The interviews with the engineers are, to me, by far the most interesting content you produce. Every engineer I know choose their field because they have a passion for it, that really shows in these interviews. In terms of creating an informed customer base this is probably the most valuable work you can do.

[@jasonfullerton7763]

Engineers are nerds that are smart enough to do a high-paying easy job, but choose to do what they do anyway - even though it's probably harder and pays less. (Engineers are well paid, but not rich by any means.)

[@markusstrobl1067]

You know the Noctua guy is for real when after 30 minutes there has been no mention of "AI".

[@umeng2002]

"Our AI tuned program told us how to stop beat frequencies using state of the art nvidia ML GPUs."

[@ZboeC5]

@@metallurgico LOL Europe is definitely all in on AI...even if you don't know it yet.

[@Hurricane2k8]

clearly this company is going nowhere /s

[@hedlund]

​@@ZboeC5Yeah I'm confused. The tech industry is so damn interconnected anyway it's not like the EU is ever gonna be able to "firewall" over-hyped LLMs even if they did want to. Which, of course, they don't. Our politicians and corpo-rats are exactly as daft, greedy, and unscrupulous as their US counterparts, and AI hype looks like it'll keep steaming ahead for a while yet.

[@JoseFranciscoAlburqueque]

AI-bsolutely

[@elbiggus]

Beat interference was (still is) a widely used intentional trick on the 8-bit Atari machines to get some interesting bass tones out of the POKEY - done right it creates a crude chorus effect, softens out some of the resonant harmonics caused by the square waves, and adds depth to the timbre.

[@Hyponx]

I really appreciate how this video converts anecdotal observations from experienced pc builders and youtubers into a very scientific explanation with videos and audio. It will make troubleshooting annoying sounds a lot more straightforward. Thank you as always GN and Noctua :)

[@carwynvan]

Working in the scientific field, I absolutely LOVE hearing someone that just absolutely knows their stuff through and through talking so passionately without it being a sales pitch 😅

[@Dodgydrains]

The Woo Woo's were on point. The most technical part of the video.

[@CheezeCracker]

Learned, Woo Woo's are undesirable. Wee Woos would be catastrophic

[@Oktokolo]

They are technical terms just like the latin words in anatomy.

[@virtuserable]

Bubb Rubb would be proud

[@aart303]

No one WOO'ed like Bernie Worrell aka “The Wizard of WOO" from P-Funk/Funcadelic, it comes close though!😅

[@aart303]

stands for; world of originality

[@ChairmanMeow1]

This is soooo nerdy and I love it!!

[@Kneedragon1962]

Two minutes in ~ one of the interesting things I learned at the age of 8 or 9 or so, about flying, is you have a multi engine aircraft, and you have a control precisely designed to let you synchronise the props, because otherwise you get this infuriating phase-change that goes wooop - woooop - The closer you get to 'right' the longer the wooop takes, but until you get it out to 10 seconds plus, it's something that's always present and prying at the edge of your consciousness. I would imagine these days they have a computer program to do it, but in the late 1960s ~ you had this one little dial you could turn, which I think made tiny incremental changes to the pitch of one of the props... It was to let you fine tune the RPM of the engines.

[@bligh1156]

A lot of older aircraft still in service obviously, but this is mostly 'solved' with electronic synchronizers etc. in recent aircraft... when it works.

[@ericmollison2760]

I learned there's now something called "synchrophasers". It controls speed and matches propeller angle so there is absolutely no beat frequency, but maybe a very subtle random variance depending on how good the synchrophasers are.

[@WarrMan4]

Always looking forward to these Jacob interviews every year.

[@fernandoanatomia]

To me this is the whole purpose of internet, to have the opportunity to learn from people that have really mastered their craft. That's amazing!!!

[@mathewmorgan7011]

I like this vid. I watch it sail straight over my head, nod wisely, glance at my Noctua fans, and feel validated in my purchasing choices.

[@telefonbarmann4514]

Der Jakob ist schon ein dufter Typ! Thanks GN for bringing us the engineering talks. I really enjoy them!

[@humanity_3]

Finally, someone said it. I can only use Noctua fans simply because of the noise most of the other fans generate. While some fans (like T30) beat Noctua in head-to-head noise-normalised test, the noise profile of T30s is just too bad.

[@DaleEarnhardtsSeatbelt]

That's why I immediately replaced my arctics. They're not worth the cheap price they do this and resonate so badly if drove me nuts. A constant hum I can be fine with, but that oscillating droning drove me nuts.

@@DaleEarnhardtsSeatbelt And yes... people say it's cheaper and better elsewhere, P20 max or T30 but people don't hear these kinds of noise, good for them

[@joshpipe7755]

@@DaleEarnhardtsSeatbelt I was checking to see if anyone else was going to mention Arctic. They offer great price to performance, but like you I struggle with the oscillating noise of the fans. I have the Liquid Freezer II and I've had to set both P12 fans on there to a constant 40% to minimise the issue :(

[@TimberWulfIsHere]

​@@DaleEarnhardtsSeatbelt You just had a bad batch. Mine are super quiet.

[@shermanikk]

The other thing about Noctua fans is that they are also extremely efficient. So for the same RPM they will push more air than other fans, especially against restrictions like radiators and heatsinks. This allows you to run the Noctua fans at a slower speed while maintaining the same airflow, allowing them to be even quieter. It's not just about the low noise, it;s having that excellent performance at the same time. That's what makes Noctua fans so much better.

[@Even-Steven]

Demystifying "that annoying humming noise that comes and goes" lol. Fascinating and educational, love it!

[@Blue-cq2hl]

The noise almost sounds like an uneven rotation like a wheel that isn't balanced

[@GamersNexus]

Ha! Great comparison.

[@rusTORK]

@@GamersNexus Sadly you didn't ask about that "reversed" fans. Are they actually do anything? It would be interesting to hear engineer's opinion on that.

[@TheDeeGeeNL]

@@rusTORK Pretty sure reversed fans would go against anything Noctua is trying to achieve for their fans in general.

[@Cokai]

Thank you Jakob Dellinger and Noctua for explaining the details. Thats absolutely awesome.

[@IIXenon]

Please never stop these Deep-Dives! For me it is by far the most anticipated content of GN. Btw the mousemat is really good.

[@Monolythic]

These dives are a lot of fun and very informative. It's awesome to hear more about the underlying engineering that goes into so much of the products we love. Keep them coming!

[@TechOverwrite]

1) Steve 2) Noctua 3) 30 minutes Yes please and thank you. 😊

[@johnnypopstar]

You missed one: 4) Windows XP

[@AlexanTheMan]

​@@johnnypopstar Windows XP with 11's logo?

[@johnnypopstar]

@@AlexanTheMan Don't crush my dreams 😭

[@MinyKatana]

I was a bit confused when i heard "schweben" in the intro, but combined with jakobs pronounciation i realised quickly, why it sounds so familiar to me as a german. Great video and examples, i think i have to adjust some of my fansettings.

[@neon200]

The explanation of why slit-type panel holes make those noises when fans are close to them made a ton of sense, thanks for hosting those technical talks it's super interesting.

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

I love my Noctua fans. Love their lack of noise. Love their colors. The most annoying computer noise is Windows beeps by Microsoft.

[@seamon9732]

Prefer Arctic's P12/14 Max lineup. They can push more air at a lower noise level and at a similar or higher static pressure. There are also quite a few other manufacturers that handily beat Noctua right now. We'll see how they fare with their upcoming fans, but they have a LOT more competition than say 7-10 years ago and have fallen behind since then.

[@TheBlueBunnyKen]

Noctua is hella expensive and there are more affordable fans out there that are just as quiet

[@reijhinru1474]

@@seamon9732thats not true phanteks fans are still a bit noisy compared with noctua. I know that because i had both of them and send the phanteks back. Noctua is still unbeaten when it comes to noise

[@Joe_Rebel]

@@reijhinru1474he’s talking about Arctic, different company. A good one too, one of my most trusted. They’ve been in the business and doing good work for a while

[@concinnus]

Turning Windows sound profile too 'none' is always one of the first things to do after install. I'd hope you could do this even on a work computer.

[@emilybjoerk]

Is that... A smile on Steve's face towards the end? I never thought I'd see the day... Well done Jacob

[@roamcool]

I found this great utility for windows called fancontrol that gives me pretty fine parameter control over the fans in my system, allowing me to avoid these resonance problems entirely (and giving me better control over thermals than most OEM software).

[@The_Lite]

+1 on fancontrol

[@normanblack4005]

Fan control is the ultimate fan app. I hope everyone who uses the app, donates some money to the dev.

[@Sevicify]

I love FanControl, it's a great little program. I've only been using it to control my case fans though using a max mixed temperature sensor of the CPU and GPU (ie: uses whichever temperature is highest at the time).

[@roamcool]

@@Sevicify I do something similar, except I offset the GPU higher before taking the maximum of the two, because the GPU has a lower maximum temperature before it throttles itself. I also step the GPU fans so they don't hang out in RPM ranges that make the GPU fans resonate with each other and/or the GPU shell, and put in a substantial hysteresis so the GPU doesn't constantly bounce between speeds.

[@Sevicify]

@@roamcool Yeah the offset for the GPU is a good idea, especially if your GPU is reaching into its throttle range. My 1080 Ti starts throttling around 70C but I go for a very aggressive fan curve starting at 30% at 40C up to 100% at 60C, combined with an under volt this kept it in the high 60s but over time it degraded to the low 70s but after repasting the card last year it barely gets over 60C now. I haven't really cared about tweaking my fans to reduce noise aside from limiting my top case fans to 75% while the rest I let ramp up to 100%. I'm almost always wearing my headset during heavy tasks which drowns out the noise really well so it doesn't bother me.

[@mechpade]

At this point, I buy Noctua products and merch just so I keep supporting the company. Always striving to be better and have not shied away from criticisms. Good Noctua is good!

[@FernTheApprentice]

beat frequency is the same concept of intonation, or out-of-tune music. If two instruments are playing the same note and one is shaper than the other, the frequencies are different, leading to the sound waves misaligning and causing intonation, or what my band director describes as "hearing waves". This is a lot less noticeable compared to the fan noise described, so we had to train our ears to hear it and tune our instruments accordingly. Just a fun connection I made.

[@thevoid6756]

YES! this has been so helpful. I just raised the idle speed a little bit and voila that annoying hum is no more. thank you!!

[@cc0767]

Did Noctua prepare this entire presentation just for this interview? Thats impressive!

[@hanswurst2220]

yes but this guy (Jakob) can easily talk about this for hours without any preparation - i am pretty sure. it is his profession and passion by a 100% ❤

[@MeatMonsterMan]

Love Noctua. Great to see how passionate they are about the fans they make. I enjoyed listening to technical talk about why fans can sometimes make sounds that are displeasing, I'm equally confused why I enjoyed it. My loyalty is only strengthened when I hear someone say Noctua fans are aesthetically questionable... It stands out because it's the star of the show.

[@f22luke]

Helpful explanations, thanks for putting this out. Hats off to Noctua for sharing this as well.

[@katzicael]

as someone who is neurospicy and (unfortunately) able to hear a lot more noise than most folks, I Greatly appreciate Noctua's efforts on acoustics.

[@edgarkondrakov9834]

Most annoying sound for me is coil whine.

[@otacon8225]

This!

[@blademaster7879]

THIS!

[@ShadySKWASHA]

That is a result more of electronics than fans usually right? Not an expert but i think its from janky caps and inductors and whatnot... BS in Mech Engr so my EE knowledge is limited but I too find coil whine annoying and thus am interested to learn more about its causes

[@otacon8225]

@@ShadySKWASHA as a CE, you MEs and EEs need to do better. 🥴

[@edgarkondrakov9834]

Yes, coil whine isn't related to fans (usually), but it is definitely more annoying than fans, fans can turn off, but coils can't. It is mostly random sounds, that make it more noticeable.

[@Skungaman]

This phenomenon was driving me insane a couple weeks ago and had to spend an entire day to figure it out. This video is super interesting and informative, sure could've used it back then to save a lot of time.

[@SWEJmeister]

Love these technical discussions with Jakob!

[@chrishogarty1678]

Amazing video. Closest translations I could find: Schwebung/Schwebungfrequenz = beat/beat frequency Aufschaulking = surging Schwiebung = vibration/tilt/shift

[@01ai01]

Thanks, this makes me feel better about how much I've spent on their fans.

[@J_Echoes]

I guess that's the thing with Noctuas. They are not the best performance for the price, but they do justify their price with just the R&D efforts they do, their focus on quality and their customer support. I'm definitely happy with my "ugly" CPU cooler!

[@XionEternum]

This is drastically simplified. Fans have a wide range of near-white-noise frequencies before also showing anywhere from 4 to 20 spikes on specific frequencies for a wide array of reasons. Tuning those spikes to reduce their amplitude as well as how many there are is the true work behind the scenes here.

[@wagayuuri9397]

As an Austrian acoustics engineer, I would just like to say: "Geil oida, aufschaukelnde Schwebung"

[@thejohnbeck]

Techno! UNCE! UNCE! UNCE! UNCE!

[@ethanlee2158]

I am always in awe at how high of a quality your interactions with these engineers are! They break it down into much easier to digest chunks that even us viewers -who know nothing about their field- can grasp immediately. Goes to show how passionate Jacob really is! Fantasic coverage! Luckily you guys didn't get kicked out this time xD Back to you Steve.

[@PsiQ]

This is so good and informative :-) i had exactly this problem because i ran two identical fans parallel on one port (y-adapter) so at certain speeds the Schwebung set in and i was looking for resonance vibrations in my case where there was none..

[@haukionkannel]

Noctua standards are so high! And nice to see people who know what they are talking about.

[@TheBadBull]

One thing that is related which most people have a relationship with is the frequency of blinker speeds between your car and the car in front of you. When they're very similar you really get the feeling for two rhythms falling in and out of sync.

[@thseed7]

These science and engineering focused videos are always some of my favorite.

[@theseabass]

I've been familiar with a similar, but visual version of this phenomenon. I like to record CRT monitors on occasion, and most cameras (when configured properly for recording CRTs) will record at 59.94fps. Various retro consoles can run at oddball framerates, and the CRTs will just output them as their are. For example, from memory the Genesis outputs something close to 59.4X FPS, which is ever so slightly different from what the camera records. For the most part, they'll stay synced up, but every few seconds you'll see a rolling pattern scroll up the screen of the recorded video, and then it will sync back up again. The further separated those framerate values are the longer and more frequent those patterns will appear.

[@ph7947]

when i walked into this i didn't expect there to be much about fans and such but after watching just 15min i'm blown away with all the stuff there's hidden under the hood of making fans work the way the should.

[@zeroxception]

Great video. I had no idea running the same model fans at the same RPM could cause an issue

[@dusans292]

Really great video. I did notice that the acoustic got worse when I put a second fan on the U12S. Thanks for the tip. Will slow down the second fan

[@cageordie]

Beats frequency. It's why a lot of aircraft have propellor or even fan sync (Cessna Citation X can sync the fan or the core of their engines).

[@MikeU128]

I had exactly this issue with my Thermalright PA 120 SE! It sounded sort of like a distant train whistle (in fact that's what I initially thought it was). Swapping the fans for Noctuas fixed it. And the Thermalright fans work fine as case intake/exhaust, so they did not go to waste. After watching this video, I imagine I also could've fixed it by tweaking the fan curve for one of the fans so that their RPMs were further apart. I'll have to remember that for the next time I use a dual-fan cooler.

[@ii7317]

The length Noctua goes is astounding as usual. Totally justifies the price in my opinion.

[@winebartender6653]

$40 a fan, $100 for a desk fan and $150 for an air cooler is not justified by this. We are at a time where cfd, component and real world testing analysis is widely (and affordably) available to many pc component manufacturers. We can see this in the increase in quality and reduction of price of competing products. There are much, much better places to spend money than on fans in this day and age. Save your $15-25 extra x6 fans and buy a better GPU, CPU or monitor.

[@seamon9732]

With the competition they have right now by Thermalright heatsinks performing as well or better at 2x to 3x cheaper and a lot fan manufacturers beating them for far cheaper at the same or lower noise levels. Nope, Noctua won't get my money anymore.

[@_uncredited]

It's expensive spinning plastic. It's not that complicated.

[@thespacedpirate]

I'll stick to my free solution for fan noise, tinnitus.

[@chrisnotyourbusines7739]

@@winebartender6653 my noctua fans work flawlessly for 10 years pluss. even if you dont care for anything else. care for that.

[@HifiSammy]

Eureeka!!!! I recently upgraded the platform in my OG O11-Dynamic and bought a new Dark Cool LT AIO. There was a humming coming from the new coolor that I couldn't figure our at a few speeds. I never any kind of humming and thought the sound was coming from some bent fins or other issue with the radiator. I ended never finding the issue even after changing the fans on the AIO which I tried 3 totally different fans. Saw and watched this video and when I managed the speed differently from one fan to the other, boom, the sound changed and I eventually figured out a curve that resolved the sound. Thank you for the video!

[@wdfgoinoninturkey]

I really felt that "Woo Woo"...

[@Its-Just-Zip]

I love these interviews with Jakob Nactua himself. So glad to see the company man making time for the media. I'm sure he has another rendition of the most capable air cooler to spend the next 10 years on :P

[@Noblehand]

I've read that Steve speaks basically fluent Mandarin, did he previously work in a Chinese tech company ?

[@GamersNexus]

I started learning around... I think 2019 or so. I studied solo using KZbin videos at first and eventually hired a really good tutor. I worked with the tutor for about 4 years 1-2 times per week for 2-4 hours per week. It's fun! Our area has a lot of immigrants from Taiwan as well, so I use it almost daily just near the office. It's especially fun when traveling as it really opens a lot of doors to better appreciate the places we go.

[@Noblehand]

@@GamersNexus That is so cool :)

[@bs_blackscout]

Do you speak only or are you able to write and read as well? What was the most difficult part of learning Mandarin?@@GamersNexus

[@blockbertus]

@@GamersNexus You even adopted the "mandarin" "confirmation-ha". ;-)

[@Noblehand]

@@bs_blackscout If he started learning Mandarin in 2019, I think it would be absolutely extraordinary if he is able to write and read Mandarin as well.

[@kennethpedersen47]

I love these videos that helps you troubleshoot issues that could actually be had by quite a few people out there.

[@BeatsbyVegas]

Love these technical videos. Thanks Steve!

[@timgels2918]

Awesome. I love that noctua actually explains things.

[@swayze240]

Cool stuff. Thanks guys!

[@ohokcool]

I love this, I put noctua fans in my computer years ago when building it and they are truly alien tech in how they are so quiet and pleasant to hear

[@dantem4119]

Gotta love those german compound words

[@jollygreen4662]

What words, what did he say?

[@coolcat23]

"Schwebung" is not a compound word. I wouldn't classify the verb "aufschaukeln" as a compound word either. N.B., it means pretty much "to escalate"; not in the sense of handing something to a higher instance, but in the sense of "getting worse and worse".

[@Davinmk]

⁠@@coolcat23yeah “to” is a good way of putting it Schweben= levitate Schwebung literally is levitation but means superposition

[@jackrenders8937]

where?

[@itsmeee-ey8xv]

🤓+ratio

[@BRUXXUS]

I LOVE how beat frequency is also visible through both fans and that effect is a direct visual representation of the audio effect. Very cool.

[@parioceanchicago]

Steeve is not an influencer, he's now a good journalist.

[@Inboc85]

TY @GamersNexus for this amazing interview! This is why my case only has Noctua fans, they have fans down to science! 🐐

[@thecivilizedgamer2533]

I want a fan that sounds like Steve saying "woowoo"

[@DC9V]

Sounds like you're a fan!

[@haukionkannel]

Put speaker inside your computer. Sample the Steve and repeat with strong amplifier! Problem solved! 😂

[@TECHiSuppose]

Fantastic information! One of my main goals with PC builds is getting it as quiet as possible so information like this is super valuable. I've noticed the woob woob type noises, clicks, and other sounds and there are a ton of potential reasons from how the fan is controlled to other aspects like they mentioned.

[@ninjatall15]

One fan that is notorious for this sound is the Arctic P12s

[@DaleEarnhardtsSeatbelt]

Yep, it was so strong the fan filter began to vibrate within the tray it sits within. Replaced them all with noctuas and it went away.

[@Bob_Smith19]

But but but those are cheaper and out perform Noctua….buy once cry once kids.

[@ninjatall15]

@@Bob_Smith19 just because its cheap does not mean it's immune to criticism

[@jeremyg4650]

An actual engineering interview and technical breakdown. Take notes manufacturers, this is what your customers want, not marketing gimmicks and flashy lights.

[@12bigredd]

lol long hair enginneer bro fest lol its so easy to see both of them love thier work :) pretty cool

[@12bigredd]

@@TheRealEtaoinShrdlu :) maybe but he is the Long Haired Digital Jesus and Dabaurs BFF so he is at least a 3rd year apprentice :)

[@CreativityNull]

If you see a guy with long, pretty well kept hair, you know they're technical and detailed in my experience. Every guy I've met with that kind of hair has been, we have Steve and Jakob here, and I have been accused of it myself.

[@Kraaketaer]

Love to see these kinds of videos! Technical, but with a direct, practical applicability for us users. I actually remember there being talk of Apple adjusting their fans for this on the Mac Pro cheesegrater back when it launched, which made me configure my own radiator fans with an offset like that as I was really aiming for silence with my build. These demos were really cool though, especially because they made me realize I've had this problem in previous builds! Could never figure out what it was, but that slowly oscillating noise is precisely what I was bugged by. Good to know, and looking forward to future discussions at future Computexes!

[@JiajuChen]

I think most students with any maths/physics/engineering background knew this. Nice to have this more systematic and real-world overview of the entire engineering problem though.

[@garrettkajmowicz]

Having the engineers come and explain the problem space is a great deal for the companies involved. Without being annoying, it helps the consumer understand why the particular products justify their higher price points.

[@rootveeld]

The fans go woooowooo!

[@DaxHamel]

Steve, I'm not even a minute into this video and I'm already excited!

[@fookoff8660]

noctua is the best

[@photonboy999]

*Noctua modded Asus Dual OC RTX4070...* I think the "beat frequency" may have been one of the main issues why my fans at 1000RPM (minimum turn-on speed) where still annoying. Whether it was or not, I ripped off the fan shroud and replaced it with two, Noctua NF-A12x25 (chromax black) fans. AMAZING! Here's the main points: 1) Noctua fans-> Y-splitter-> to motherboard fan header (not graphics card) 2) Minimum RPM around 350RPM (GPU about 35degC) 3) Maximum RPM around 700RPM under stress test (quiet/silent) 4) Fans controlled by "Fan Control" (amazing software). 5) my custom fan profile-> (350RPM (15%) until 70degC, 700RPM at 82degC, 1400RPM at 85degC) Quick overview: My Asus RTX4070 seemed fairly quiet at first. Then I noticed a slight warble/hum. It went away. It came back. I realized the "0dB" mode of the card meant the fans in IDLE PC usage turned on roughly every five minutes. At 1000RPM with that slight noise. Always on with that slight hum wasn't an option (plus it was sometimes very loud when gaming). It started driving me crazy... I tried to put DAMPENING material under the fans. Didn't help... I'd modded my GTX1080 with Noctua fans, so I planned to do it here. PROBLEM! Needed a custom fan cable... I researched that, but then realized in my slow brain that the "1000RPM" turn-on speed would still be a minimum. So I planned to hook up to the motherboard... (Different fans can be a huge issue with a card anyway. I got COIL WHINE from my GTX1080 so I'd run the 2nd fan to the motherboard for that card to reduce the load, and used "Fan Control") So.. Long story short, my card is essentially DEAD SILENT. The fans are being controlled by "Fan Control" software. The fan PROFILE is custom by me, but Fan Control uses the GPU (not CPU) temperature sensor so that's perfect! Rest of PC is Noctua fans/cooler. And I use Fan Control for those too. CPU and case fans 350RPM to 700RPM. Essentially SILENT PC! (Why is this so hard for GPU makers and custom PC builders to get right? Run the CPU/GPU hot but not too hot and design the fan profile around that to be as quiet as possible. And tiny fans on a GPU that are forced to spin to 2000RPM+? Why? To save a couple dollars? Heck, you could reduce the heat sink size and just put on LARGER fans, that spin slower and have a quieter card that costs the same or less!!!)

[@resh4299]

Tech Jesus vs Fan Jesus

[@hanswurst2220]

Amen 🙏

[@olivier7593]

I'm a always a big supporter of these coolers. Since the beginning when i started building computers I've had a soft spot for these thermantidotes. You even could say I'm a fan!!!

[@wololo10]

I had the woowoowoowoowoowoo on my noctuas, so annoying

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

That part about the "beat" frequency I remember was demonstrated at a technical museum backe when I was ten or so. They had organ pipes, large ones, set up along a wall. you could "tune" the pipes by moving a lever for each. If you set two pipes to close to the same frequency you got the wow effect, and the frequency of this fell as you matched the pipes closer and closer. Theoretically the "beat" would disappear if the pipes were at the exact same frequency. Now the interesting thing is that is one pipe hit an almost perfect multiple of the frequency of the first pipe then you could hear that beat again, and this was true for three times or four times the frequency just like it was when you almost matched the frequencies perfectly. As a technical experiment for children it was pretty fantastic. They also had a setup that demonstrated the Doppler effect on sound. It vas a good example showing the change in noise from stand still to when the speaker mounted on a long rotating arm reached a high speed. You could hear that the sound had a higher frequency when the speaker approached you while the sound frequency fell as it moved away from you. This also was a good demonstration that managed to explain this phenomena even for young kids. Now the Doppler effect will work with light, radio signals and such, but to see the doppler effect on light you have to go to extreme speeds, far higher than what can be done in a experiment as accessible as this. But sound has a transmission speed of about 320 meter per second, so even a small model can be used to demonstrate the Doppler effect.

[@69Buddha]

Man I love watching an intelligent expert talk about their work.

[@YuNherd]

when companies lends people like this to steve shows the companies' dedication to their products. tnx steve.

[@JordansTechJunk]

Jakob is my FAVORITE partner in the industry to work with!

[@woofwoofwoofwoofwoofwoofwoof]

Wow that visual representation using the bright light was amazing.

[@megapro125]

did you chage your username after watching this video or is it just a coincident lol

[@Louie_M]

I love how this actually answers a question I had about the noise from my current dual tower heatsink. Any thing I ever look up about fan noise always has just someone replying in the comments "It's the bearing".

[@Retro-Iron11]

Years ago I started removing the center stickers from the rotating masses on fans, it helped tremendously with balance and thus vibration noise. It's a habit I never gave up as those things were never ever centered and in most cases horribly applied at factory. If your fans have those, pull them off. The stickers on the rear, leave them as they are assisting in the bearing seal. That's one step in helping noise. If you have your case where you can easily see into it from the "window" side, well, there's nothing much to be done about noise throw, it's always in your ear. Physically move the case low and to your left. The noise will then throw away from you, not at you as much.

[@cortburris9526]

I wonder if you could plug one into a low noise adapter to slow it down a bit, and let the other run at normal speed

[@BlackHoleForge]

2:13 if you don't understand it, think of blinking turn signal lights while you're waiting at a stop sign. Sometimes they overlap, but they always end up going in and out of phase with each other. 🚗

[@superpandabacon]

II'm 2mins into the video and already wanted to say that I want that Noctua shirt!!! And this beat frequency is probably why i can hear random "music" while I have a box fan going a few feat from me

[@FrenziedManbeast]

It's strange that you filmed this video right after I solved this very problem in my brother's build I just finished - it even uses Noctua fans but in an aging Rosewill chassis. The thinner metal likes to resonate in acoustically unpleasant ways! I have had an interest in the differential equations for constructive and de-constructive interference since my undergrad days. One of my mentors gave a lecture on his work with more complex waveform models for use in things such as muscular dystrophy signal loss. There were people undergoing experimental surgery trying to 'hotwire' around neurons with smaller ones, and his work helped show surgeons and desperate patients there wasn't enough bandwidth with the grafted samples to preserve the information firing 'down' the nerves in their body. Anyway that's my story, thanks for sharing the interesting video.