Noctua Deskmini Fanduct

thingiverse

I always experienced issues with temps in my Asrock Deskminis over the years. Using noctua L9i in quiet profile resulted in temps around 70 degrees under heavy load (at that time I had an i7-8700), and I had already delidded my cpu. Staying under 65 degrees keeps the fan silent, after that it turns up. The noctua silence adapter puts temps even more up and grills my ssd underneath, so that's not an option. With this fanduct, fresh air from outside should be drawn in for better noise reduction, which is why I put some rubber pads under it (seen the photos). It is a tight fit - you will have to press around some unnecessary fittings of the original case, but then it's okay. My i7-8700 temperatures dropped by 3-5 degrees with this fanduct. Unfortunately, the fan still spins up for some seconds from time to time, which is still a little annoying. I also noticed that there is limited space for hot air to be blown out - the case gets hotter and hotter over time, so if it's not working properly I will design a new case for this SFX Mainboard. Using a 12cm fan and making some space for 15mm high HDDs are both options. Alternatively, just adding more ventilation holes to the outer frame could be the solution. This will be my next project - as the fan is still spinning up, I'll start working on it today.