I've recently received my CCR2004-1G-2XS-PCIe and i'm gonna tell you this thing is a blast! There is just one tiny little non-technical problem with it and that is its WAF (the famous wife acceptance factor), which is pretty low given that this thing is like a turbine. Once it takes a little notch (lets say 1-2 gbits of traffic) it'll sound like its gonna take of. Therefore, I decided to modify mine just a little bit to get the WAF up. Here is what i did, maybe the one or the other married reader wants to follow along:
- First you need to remove the heat sink from the board. Keep your thermal paste at hand, as you'll have to replace the one under the heat sink.
- Then i removed the stock fan from the board. Quite easy, just unscrew.
- Next is the disassembly of the heat sink itself. Its two separate parts hold by a few screws and we'll replace the top part.
- Off to the printer: I printed two plastic pieces, a replacement top part of the heat sink to mount the new fans on and a second part to close the giant hole for the stock fan.
- All that follows is mounting our new, super silent fans to the printed top cover and reassembly in the reverse order, let me give you some pictures:
- Then I closed the giant hole in the bottom of the heat sink to optimize air flow
- And finally mount the heat sink back to the board (don't forget your thermal paste!) and some (not yet perfect) cable management. I didn't want to shorten the cables right away before i haven't tested this actually works.
So, summa summarum, after this modifications the WAF is rose extraordinarily, as the little CCR is inaudible! Temperatures are also looking good, as can be seen on this screenshot done after over an hour of stressing the CPU:
E voilà there you have it, a silent fan mod for the amazing CCR2004-1G-2XS-PCIe. Enjoy!