Feasibility of using larger custom fan with standalone mainboard

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Hey all,
I was thinking about getting one of the ryzen ai 350 mainboards to use as a standalone htpc with my own case. I’d like to control fan noise so I would like to replace the provided small laptop fan with my own larger fan. This would need to be mounted in a different manner of course, so I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the feasibility of removing only the provided fan, leaving the heatsink attached, and if a fan mounted on top of the heatsink could provide adequate cooling.

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Hi @matt_smolich,

Welcome to the community.

I think someone did this very thing with a Noctua fan. As long as the heat sink is getting as much or more airflow across it than the stock fan it should not be an issue. It does not even need to be physically mounted to the heat sink if you have enough good airflow going across it.

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I remember seeing it, could it be this from Elevated System?

at 9:30

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Oh yes! That is the one I remember seeing. (Plus chuckling a little at the overkill on the backplate/overmount he created)

Kudos to him for going to the trouble of doing some sheetmetal work to get the pieces he wanted.

I remember thinking when I watched the video that Noctua does make a special 5V only fan that would probably be able to connected directly (after making/splicing the fan cable to go to the new fan) presuming the board does not freak out from the additional amperage.

The more I think about it, it should be possible to take the CoolerMaster case (or 3D print one) and mount the fan on the face of the case (Mounting the fan off the case about 0.250" or 6mm to get enough surrounding airflow). Cutting out the area around the fan inlets for better airflow. You could mount a 120mm and maybe even a 140mm fan to blow on the board and it should provide more than enough cooling over the stock laptop fan. There are a number of 3D print files for the Mainbord case; I remember seeing some variants on the last printables contest. If you do not have access to a 3D printer; there are a number of people on here that could help with it, print, and send it.

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