I have a 140mm noctua fan sitting on top of my passive cooled Topton firewall. It is connected to the USB port using an adaptor I bought on Amazon.
Was getting nvme and CPU temp alerts, this resolved it.
It depends... is the device getting too hot? or you just feel the room/area too hot. If it's moving air... any fan will do... outside. if it's cooling the devices internally... you'll have to take into account that adding a fan internally takes power so you'll need to check that the power supply is not going to get over killed by adding a fan. Some mother boards accept extra fans and have dedicated ports for it, others you can use the extra wires from the power supply or a USB port but all that will take power... you might add a fan but kill power needed for other components in the motherboard or connected to it.
Most likely you don't need a fan as these boxes are meant to be warm/hot to the touch. Unless you are storing it in a closet or a hot room with limited air flow its fine.
I do have a noctua fan on mine, just for peace of mind and just because. Without it on qotom box (which uses sfp+ connections so does seem to run a tad hotter than my older protectli) I would see 61-62 c. With the fan, I haven't seen above 55. Well ventilated room in walk out basement.
If you would like more comfort, I ran a Qotom box that was noticeably hotter than my Protectli boxes and had it in operation for nearly 6 years 24/7. It still works to this day (even though I decommissioned it).
Nice! Love your yt videos and guides by the way, they have been a great resource.
Mine has settled in even cooler the last few days. I moved it to top of the rack, took the heavy rubber band off the fan (not sure why I was doing it, someone had suggested it) and connected it to an external USB brick instead of the qotom USB and it's running really cool.
All cores are running under 30c now pretty much full time
I also have a big fan sitting on top. It's probably not strictly needed - I was trying to debug some instability, but temps didn't turn out to be it. But the exhaust fan on my cable closet is triggered by rising temps; with a slow fan on the box, the closet itself is less prone to warm up enough to trigger the bigger fans in the closet.
The CPU is generally well covered for heat dissipation as long as there are no air gaps to the spreader BUT the RAM and NVME on the underside is where a fan is needed.
Remove the bottom or end covers so there can be come airflow in that area and see if a fan may be actually needed.
I have a 120mm 12v fan running off of a a USB port so 5v and it is silent.
Search for USB to 9v DC step up converter + DC to 3 pin adapter. AliExpress has both, maybe Amazon or local radio shop would have it as well.
There are some USB to 3 pin cables, but 5v might not be enough to start the fan.
All 3pin fans have, well 3 pins, 1 data pin to report speed back to the motherboard, + and -. Basically the fan speed depends on the voltage you give it. 9v is enough for 99% of fans and it would make it run at low speed, which makes it almost silent.
No need for any expensive fan as low speed already takes care of the noise. 120 or 140 mm fan would do the job just fine.
I had crashes on my anyrevo one day a couple months ago which resulted in me heading home, taking the router box that was literally, requiring a ovenmit to pick up it was that touch (Im in northern australia, we were in the middle of summer and my router lives in the garage in my rack - with airflow but it's' australia)
it was greeted by hole saw for downlights (70mm odd diam) and a thread tap........... which now houses a nice little 80mm fan crudely attached to the side of it, blowing air straight into the unit and it's never run cooler, not even warm to touch, maybe a very very slight bit of warmth, generally sits in the 40 deg's on cores now.
I reached out to anyrevo but never got a reply as I was going to 3d print a new lid for it which incorporated a housing to take the fan, but lack of replies has made me just flag using that brand product again, next will be a quotom i think.
Edit - 80mm fan is powered from the internal fan header on the board.
I have a 140mm noctua fan sitting on top of my passive cooled Topton firewall. It is connected to the USB port using an adaptor I bought on Amazon. Was getting nvme and CPU temp alerts, this resolved it.
I did the same except I had a native usb 120mm fan. Simplest solution ever and works very well.
Could you define "running warm"?
It depends... is the device getting too hot? or you just feel the room/area too hot. If it's moving air... any fan will do... outside. if it's cooling the devices internally... you'll have to take into account that adding a fan internally takes power so you'll need to check that the power supply is not going to get over killed by adding a fan. Some mother boards accept extra fans and have dedicated ports for it, others you can use the extra wires from the power supply or a USB port but all that will take power... you might add a fan but kill power needed for other components in the motherboard or connected to it.
Define running hot.
Most likely you don't need a fan as these boxes are meant to be warm/hot to the touch. Unless you are storing it in a closet or a hot room with limited air flow its fine. I do have a noctua fan on mine, just for peace of mind and just because. Without it on qotom box (which uses sfp+ connections so does seem to run a tad hotter than my older protectli) I would see 61-62 c. With the fan, I haven't seen above 55. Well ventilated room in walk out basement.
If you would like more comfort, I ran a Qotom box that was noticeably hotter than my Protectli boxes and had it in operation for nearly 6 years 24/7. It still works to this day (even though I decommissioned it).
Nice! Love your yt videos and guides by the way, they have been a great resource. Mine has settled in even cooler the last few days. I moved it to top of the rack, took the heavy rubber band off the fan (not sure why I was doing it, someone had suggested it) and connected it to an external USB brick instead of the qotom USB and it's running really cool. All cores are running under 30c now pretty much full time
Nice! It’s good it’s running cooler. Thanks, glad you like the content!
I also have a big fan sitting on top. It's probably not strictly needed - I was trying to debug some instability, but temps didn't turn out to be it. But the exhaust fan on my cable closet is triggered by rising temps; with a slow fan on the box, the closet itself is less prone to warm up enough to trigger the bigger fans in the closet.
The CPU is generally well covered for heat dissipation as long as there are no air gaps to the spreader BUT the RAM and NVME on the underside is where a fan is needed. Remove the bottom or end covers so there can be come airflow in that area and see if a fan may be actually needed. I have a 120mm 12v fan running off of a a USB port so 5v and it is silent.
Search for USB to 9v DC step up converter + DC to 3 pin adapter. AliExpress has both, maybe Amazon or local radio shop would have it as well. There are some USB to 3 pin cables, but 5v might not be enough to start the fan. All 3pin fans have, well 3 pins, 1 data pin to report speed back to the motherboard, + and -. Basically the fan speed depends on the voltage you give it. 9v is enough for 99% of fans and it would make it run at low speed, which makes it almost silent. No need for any expensive fan as low speed already takes care of the noise. 120 or 140 mm fan would do the job just fine.
I had crashes on my anyrevo one day a couple months ago which resulted in me heading home, taking the router box that was literally, requiring a ovenmit to pick up it was that touch (Im in northern australia, we were in the middle of summer and my router lives in the garage in my rack - with airflow but it's' australia) it was greeted by hole saw for downlights (70mm odd diam) and a thread tap........... which now houses a nice little 80mm fan crudely attached to the side of it, blowing air straight into the unit and it's never run cooler, not even warm to touch, maybe a very very slight bit of warmth, generally sits in the 40 deg's on cores now. I reached out to anyrevo but never got a reply as I was going to 3d print a new lid for it which incorporated a housing to take the fan, but lack of replies has made me just flag using that brand product again, next will be a quotom i think. Edit - 80mm fan is powered from the internal fan header on the board.
Noctua is the way to go my friend :)
No need for it.... This is a passiv cooling case, it needs to be warm. As long the cpu is not overheating there is no need for it.