Question Skull Canyon NUC cooling, how to cool? And is there a replacement case around?

[Lil'John]

Title kind of states it. Yes, "old" tech.

I've got a pair of Skull Canyon NUCs (NUC6i7KYK). Both have fans that are failing. From my search, the fans were garbage coming from Intel.

I've redone the thermal paste and they still aren't happy(currently typing on one running only Chrome with all four cores over 80C )

They both work for what I want so buying a new computer is out. Mostly web browsing, some coding, and some "low" end gaming like Shadowrun, Battletech, etc. The games work fine on low settings.

Aside from the stock fan, is there a better replacement?

Same with the case? Is it luck of the draw finding an ebay stock case or Askasu? One case is failing at the bottom.

 

[aigomorla]

I had to hack my NUC apart to get this done.
I wanted to use an AKASA passive case, but i heard a lot of good and bad dirty things about it.

I had to do a mod which was floatting around and it took some effort with a dremel.

This is the result.

Pardon the dirty pictures, i sort of retired this NUC, had to pull it from storage, as i only use it when i need a STEAMCMD server for hosting games with my friends.

Basically its a heat pipe cooler sitting on top of the heat pipes directly above the CPU.


I went with a Phantek unit as you need a heatsink which has a horizontal bar across the base plate as you again, need to mod the top metal chasis on the NUC with a flat thin head bolt to get the mounting retension to sit right.

Issue is you then need to just apply enough pressure where u get a good mount, and not cause your NUC to smile from warping, as it will displace your USB port shown here.


The issue tho is the FAN which you need. I just run it though a 12V adapter which i hacked off the 6mm plug and soldered on a regular fan splitter directly.

 

[UsandThem]

I had to hack my NUC apart to get this done.
I wanted to use an AKASA passive case, but i heard a lot of good and bad dirty things about it.

I had to do a mod which was floatting around and it took some effort with a dremel.

This is the result.

Pardon the dirty pictures, i sort of retired this NUC, had to pull it from storage, as i only use it when i need a STEAMCMD server for hosting games with my friends.

Basically its a heat pipe cooler sitting on top of the heat pipes directly above the CPU.
View attachment 57458

I went with a Phantek unit as you need a heatsink which has a horizontal bar across the base plate as you again, need to mod the top metal chasis on the NUC with a flat thin head bolt to get the mounting retension to sit right.

Issue is you then need to just apply enough pressure where u get a good mount, and not cause your NUC to smile from warping, as it will displace your USB port shown here.
View attachment 57459

The issue tho is the FAN which you need. I just run it though a 12V adapter which i hacked off the 6mm plug and soldered on a regular fan splitter directly.

View attachment 57460

It looks like a hotrod NUC.

 

[aigomorla]

It looks like a hotrod NUC.

well i guess you could sort of call it that, as it did supercharge the NUC with more air intake at the cooler, and allowed it to burn at 100% without throttling.