**The Noctua Fan Mod: A Simple yet Necessary Upgrade for Your Dreamcast**

When it comes to upgrading your Dreamcast, there are many mods out there that can make a big difference in its performance and overall gaming experience. One such mod is the Noctua fan mod, which we'll be covering in this article.

I was playing my Dreamcast the other day and I heard a weird noise coming from the back of it. I didn't know what it was, so I decided to do some research and find out what was going on. It turned out that the original fans in my Dreamcast were not very efficient, which caused the noise.

Now, let's talk about how this mod works. The Noctua fan mod is a 3D printed kit that people are doing, and it's actually one of the most important mods for your Dreamcast if you play it a lot. This mod creates a little wind tunnel inside the console, which helps to move air around and improve the cooling system.

The mod is not too hard to do, but it does require some patience and dedication. First, you need to take apart your Dreamcast and remove the original fans. Then, you install the new Noctua fan, which is a high-quality fan that's designed to be quiet and efficient.

I decided to try out this mod on my own Dreamcast, so I followed the instructions carefully and installed the new fan. At first, it was a bit tricky, but eventually, I got it working without any problems.

Now, let's talk about the benefits of this mod. As I mentioned earlier, the original fans in your Dreamcast were not very efficient, which caused the noise and overheating issues. But with the Noctua fan mod, you can expect a significant improvement in cooling performance.

When I powered on my Dreamcast after installing the new fan, I was blown away by how quiet it was compared to before. The fan was also much quieter than I expected, which is a huge plus for anyone who wants to minimize noise while gaming.

Another benefit of this mod is that it can help to prolong the lifespan of your Dreamcast's hardware. By keeping the console cool and well-ventilated, you're reducing the risk of overheating and damage to your components.

In conclusion, the Noctua fan mod is a simple yet necessary upgrade for anyone who wants to improve their Dreamcast's performance and longevity. It's not too hard to do, but it does require some patience and dedication. If you're looking to upgrade your Dreamcast, this is definitely one mod that I would recommend.

**Additional Resources:**

* Noctua fan mod kit available on [link]

* 3D printed kit instructions available on [link]

**Disclaimer:** Always follow proper safety precautions when working with electronics and modify your console at your own risk.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enguys it's me again and guess what still wearing the shirt because i'm still working on the dreamcast so sit back relax and check this out because we're about to take remember that fan noise that was going on in the last video we're gonna alter that so guys if you're not subscribed as i said before you're going to want to because as we move along here we're going to build the ultimate dreamcast okay so i'm not sure if everybody's aware but there is a noctua fan mod so the nazco fan mod is actually a fan from noctua we're just calling it the knock to a fan mod it is something fans had created so you buy the knock to a fan which is quieter larger more airflow and then you get the 3d printed new shroud you can see how much bigger this is keep in mind the other fan was only this big now we're this big so here to here so this is a much bigger fan what does a bigger fan do for you a few things one it's going to take in more air and drive more cold air across your dreamcast through the intake and across the board which is great especially when you're running the power supply whether it be the factory power supply or the new modded one as i put in the dream psu then you're going to have another piece like this that's 3d printed as you have to change this piece right here the reason why i have to change that piece right there is because when you put the shell back on there is something that would hit this area right here that is now 3d printed out so it's a very important piece it is much needed because now the shroud is much bigger and it's in that same area so it would hit the fan basically also in this kit you get this little dongle here now what this dongle does it takes it from a pc fan the noctua fan and clips into the dreamcast main board so that is much needed because without that we're going to have to cut wire or take off the other end wire in a new end just pain in the butt we want to make this as easy and as efficient as possible these guys made a great kit so in the link below of course i'll have the best place to buy the noctua fan which is an amazon link and i'll have the best place that i found to buy this kit the 3d printed kit with all the 3d parts and the necessary wire conversion wire and that would be an ebay link so i'll have those two down below in the description if you want to do this fan mod you can do this fan mud no matter what your dreamcast is doing so whether it be uh just a factory dreamcast you just want better cooling or your fan is really noisy and it's really dying the big thing about these fans is they're probably just a oil filled bearing which means over time they're going to grind up they're going to get grindy they're going to get noisier as this fan i think has gotten noisier and that in turn is going to slow the fan down and your air movement so the noctua fan the bearings are always a much better sealed bearing they last a lot longer so this fan is going to have the longevity probably of the life of you and your dreamcast which is very important so do it once get it done move more air so for this mod we're going to have to take this out so to take this out we're going to need a smaller screwdriver than that one oh this might be too small but we'll find out there's two screws that hold the fan in one is here and one is here and there's your power connecting uh fan connector right there so everything's just right here in this one little spot so basically unscrew these two screws we're going to reuse those screws so don't get rid of them so we're actually reusing the original screws and we're going to unplug please hold this down when you're taking out the uh connector as this seems to move a little and the last thing we want to do is actually break that so now your original fan housing has been removed i'm guessing we're going to have to use the original screws there or no probably not so the unfortunate part about this is we're installing this blind i don't have any instructions instructions didn't come with this so we're basically on our own putting this in so you're gonna learn like i am so let's get this fan out really nice a lot of stuff it comes with i gotta say oh it even comes with a nice adapter to go to something else i don't know what that's for huh kinda neat but there's a lot of adapters in here that you can use so it's kind of nice you get to keep those for whatever later on so here's our noctua fan as you can see look at the air movement possibility difference here very small nice and big this is like twice the fan twice the fan rubber little bushings here and everything so when it bolts in it's nice and quiet it's really nice i gotta say it's quite nice so basically uh this connector here is going to connect here and that's it the only thing i don't like about this is now i have to get rid of this extra wire which will just run down along the side in the chassis here so not a big deal but still a pain in the butt so my question now is how does this actually go in if i had to make a big guess i'm going to say it goes in like this the reason why i think that is it has a screw hole right here and that makes me believe that it screws in like that now you're not going to use the fans from the dreamcast screws they're too small noctua gives you the proper screws so we're going to just take one of those out now we're going to grab a normal size screwdriver like the one here from be quiet not endorsing anybody at all we're going to put the screw through here which i'm guessing may have to get worked through as 3d printing is never perfect there we go and now we're going to want the fan this way so what happens when you're fan this is very important when your fan is spinning this side is exhausting air okay we want air coming in so the fan has to be put on this way so this is facing back so that this is sucking air into the console so this to the back so we want this like this okay very important okay now it actually has a spot here to stop it from moving so that's kind of nice so there's your uh fan mount we're gonna put it in here now at least i think we are oops did that wrong okay another little word of advice remember we're doing this blind so we're going to find out all the little problems remove the fan from the shroud first mount the shroud after you put the set screw in like this mount the shroud first as you can not get the fan the screw in if you don't do it this way that was definitely a issue so there we go there and there one screw in never over tighten okay guys try never to over tighten anything you're doing because all that'll do strip and break or crack the housing that you're trying to put in and that is just absolutely against everything we're trying to do here so now i'm going to recommend that we plug this into here first just so we have it out of the way so we can actually redirect it it looks like it might be a lot more work to try and plug in later so again hold the connector as i said it's it's easily moved easily bent and that bothers me so don't let that happen so now we're going to like i said i'm going to run the wire down like this again make sure that the blades are facing inward okay so what we've done here now is we have the member the blades with no sticker facing out of the system the sticker facing in to the system so that we're pulling air from outside in so now what we want to do is we want to power this up and see how noisy it is is it noisier and the only real way to really do that proper um oh wait before we do that i guess gotta change this piece oh what a pain in the butt that might be let's find out all right so this piece looks like this piece sorta kinda i don't understand how different they are they're very different actually take this off regardless so i gotta take the spring off so make sure you're keeping that don't let it go we gotta keep it we gotta keep it okay so that goes that way all right i've never changed this piece before so i don't know what's about to happen hopefully this is uh pretty straightforward or i'm going to cry i don't want to cry okay so this piece is off so looking at this we have a hook down below um so we know how this has to go on so the hole the hole this and this so we're just going to put this back in place and now i have to put the screws back on then we have to put the spring back on okay so far this doesn't look so bad i thought this was going to be much worse than it is don't over tighten it because you want to still be able to move again shouldn't over tighten anyway you also don't want to fall off okay now putting this back on maybe i didn't show when i took it off the little loop goes on the tab right here and then the hook goes on the frame of the dreamcast right here there we go when i press the button let's do it again there we go works so that wasn't so hard not so hard at all so that was a very simple very easy mod again keep your parts you don't know what's going to happen let's put this back together if i can hopefully the fan is not hitting everywhere so okay so let's put the screws back in this time and we're going to test it for noise like we did on when i heard the noise from the last one i just want to see what this is like is it so much quieter is there a lot more air these are very curious questions and i really want them answered i mean it's not a uh overly cheap mod but it seems like a very necessary one from what i've seen in red keep in mind when these things were built back in the day things were much much different the way things were made and and i always think that sega always like over created everything like i think they've always made things much stronger than the other competitors like nintendo and sony and so on i believe that like if sony was around today they'd still be making the most solid hardware on the market so everything's back on i don't have any weird things happening that works so that is very important because that's what that piece was meant to do now we're going to power it up plugged in now we're going to power it we have power oh wow there it's to my mic that is amazing that is absolutely amazing and i can feel the air moving in it's getting hot in here it's getting hot in here i take off all my no no not gonna do that i know you guys don't want to see it anyway but but i'm not going to do it and do not comment below if you want to see that anyway guys i hope you enjoyed this extra episode of the noctua i'm going to call the noctua fan mod because that is the only brand name that's in this is noctua noctua is also famous for making some of the best fans period okay that's why the noctua fan was chosen because they're a long-lasting fan they are not cheap by any means i think this fan was about 20 bucks canadian so it wasn't horrible but that's just a tiny fan right but they build their fans well whether it's their 20 fan or their 100 fan they're quality fans so that was what was chosen and the uh 3d printed kit is an aftermarket mod that people are doing and again i'll leave both links down below for that so if you're looking to do this mod this is one of the mods that i think is probably the most important mod of them all if you play your dreamcast a lot this is going to move a ton of air inside this console keep in mind this console is sealed everywhere else that is the intake that is the only intake which means that air is just going to flow it's just going to flow and then whatever a little bit that it can take out of there so that is actually awesome because now you're creating a little wind tunnel some people have put a plastic shroud or something inside just to direct the wind i don't think that is necessary as the system is not really altered in any way as far as what it used to be like with the optical drive in it versus the gdmu i still think the air movement's going to be about the same we're just going to have more of it anyway guys i hope you're enjoying this series of the ultimate dreamcast there is more to come for example you guys must hate the fact that your battery is dead in your dreamcast that's all i gotta say anyways until next time please subscribe if you're not subscribed to the channel and again there is more coming to this series and i hope you enjoy the ultimate dreamcast build until next time game overguys it's me again and guess what still wearing the shirt because i'm still working on the dreamcast so sit back relax and check this out because we're about to take remember that fan noise that was going on in the last video we're gonna alter that so guys if you're not subscribed as i said before you're going to want to because as we move along here we're going to build the ultimate dreamcast okay so i'm not sure if everybody's aware but there is a noctua fan mod so the nazco fan mod is actually a fan from noctua we're just calling it the knock to a fan mod it is something fans had created so you buy the knock to a fan which is quieter larger more airflow and then you get the 3d printed new shroud you can see how much bigger this is keep in mind the other fan was only this big now we're this big so here to here so this is a much bigger fan what does a bigger fan do for you a few things one it's going to take in more air and drive more cold air across your dreamcast through the intake and across the board which is great especially when you're running the power supply whether it be the factory power supply or the new modded one as i put in the dream psu then you're going to have another piece like this that's 3d printed as you have to change this piece right here the reason why i have to change that piece right there is because when you put the shell back on there is something that would hit this area right here that is now 3d printed out so it's a very important piece it is much needed because now the shroud is much bigger and it's in that same area so it would hit the fan basically also in this kit you get this little dongle here now what this dongle does it takes it from a pc fan the noctua fan and clips into the dreamcast main board so that is much needed because without that we're going to have to cut wire or take off the other end wire in a new end just pain in the butt we want to make this as easy and as efficient as possible these guys made a great kit so in the link below of course i'll have the best place to buy the noctua fan which is an amazon link and i'll have the best place that i found to buy this kit the 3d printed kit with all the 3d parts and the necessary wire conversion wire and that would be an ebay link so i'll have those two down below in the description if you want to do this fan mod you can do this fan mud no matter what your dreamcast is doing so whether it be uh just a factory dreamcast you just want better cooling or your fan is really noisy and it's really dying the big thing about these fans is they're probably just a oil filled bearing which means over time they're going to grind up they're going to get grindy they're going to get noisier as this fan i think has gotten noisier and that in turn is going to slow the fan down and your air movement so the noctua fan the bearings are always a much better sealed bearing they last a lot longer so this fan is going to have the longevity probably of the life of you and your dreamcast which is very important so do it once get it done move more air so for this mod we're going to have to take this out so to take this out we're going to need a smaller screwdriver than that one oh this might be too small but we'll find out there's two screws that hold the fan in one is here and one is here and there's your power connecting uh fan connector right there so everything's just right here in this one little spot so basically unscrew these two screws we're going to reuse those screws so don't get rid of them so we're actually reusing the original screws and we're going to unplug please hold this down when you're taking out the uh connector as this seems to move a little and the last thing we want to do is actually break that so now your original fan housing has been removed i'm guessing we're going to have to use the original screws there or no probably not so the unfortunate part about this is we're installing this blind i don't have any instructions instructions didn't come with this so we're basically on our own putting this in so you're gonna learn like i am so let's get this fan out really nice a lot of stuff it comes with i gotta say oh it even comes with a nice adapter to go to something else i don't know what that's for huh kinda neat but there's a lot of adapters in here that you can use so it's kind of nice you get to keep those for whatever later on so here's our noctua fan as you can see look at the air movement possibility difference here very small nice and big this is like twice the fan twice the fan rubber little bushings here and everything so when it bolts in it's nice and quiet it's really nice i gotta say it's quite nice so basically uh this connector here is going to connect here and that's it the only thing i don't like about this is now i have to get rid of this extra wire which will just run down along the side in the chassis here so not a big deal but still a pain in the butt so my question now is how does this actually go in if i had to make a big guess i'm going to say it goes in like this the reason why i think that is it has a screw hole right here and that makes me believe that it screws in like that now you're not going to use the fans from the dreamcast screws they're too small noctua gives you the proper screws so we're going to just take one of those out now we're going to grab a normal size screwdriver like the one here from be quiet not endorsing anybody at all we're going to put the screw through here which i'm guessing may have to get worked through as 3d printing is never perfect there we go and now we're going to want the fan this way so what happens when you're fan this is very important when your fan is spinning this side is exhausting air okay we want air coming in so the fan has to be put on this way so this is facing back so that this is sucking air into the console so this to the back so we want this like this okay very important okay now it actually has a spot here to stop it from moving so that's kind of nice so there's your uh fan mount we're gonna put it in here now at least i think we are oops did that wrong okay another little word of advice remember we're doing this blind so we're going to find out all the little problems remove the fan from the shroud first mount the shroud after you put the set screw in like this mount the shroud first as you can not get the fan the screw in if you don't do it this way that was definitely a issue so there we go there and there one screw in never over tighten okay guys try never to over tighten anything you're doing because all that'll do strip and break or crack the housing that you're trying to put in and that is just absolutely against everything we're trying to do here so now i'm going to recommend that we plug this into here first just so we have it out of the way so we can actually redirect it it looks like it might be a lot more work to try and plug in later so again hold the connector as i said it's it's easily moved easily bent and that bothers me so don't let that happen so now we're going to like i said i'm going to run the wire down like this again make sure that the blades are facing inward okay so what we've done here now is we have the member the blades with no sticker facing out of the system the sticker facing in to the system so that we're pulling air from outside in so now what we want to do is we want to power this up and see how noisy it is is it noisier and the only real way to really do that proper um oh wait before we do that i guess gotta change this piece oh what a pain in the butt that might be let's find out all right so this piece looks like this piece sorta kinda i don't understand how different they are they're very different actually take this off regardless so i gotta take the spring off so make sure you're keeping that don't let it go we gotta keep it we gotta keep it okay so that goes that way all right i've never changed this piece before so i don't know what's about to happen hopefully this is uh pretty straightforward or i'm going to cry i don't want to cry okay so this piece is off so looking at this we have a hook down below um so we know how this has to go on so the hole the hole this and this so we're just going to put this back in place and now i have to put the screws back on then we have to put the spring back on okay so far this doesn't look so bad i thought this was going to be much worse than it is don't over tighten it because you want to still be able to move again shouldn't over tighten anyway you also don't want to fall off okay now putting this back on maybe i didn't show when i took it off the little loop goes on the tab right here and then the hook goes on the frame of the dreamcast right here there we go when i press the button let's do it again there we go works so that wasn't so hard not so hard at all so that was a very simple very easy mod again keep your parts you don't know what's going to happen let's put this back together if i can hopefully the fan is not hitting everywhere so okay so let's put the screws back in this time and we're going to test it for noise like we did on when i heard the noise from the last one i just want to see what this is like is it so much quieter is there a lot more air these are very curious questions and i really want them answered i mean it's not a uh overly cheap mod but it seems like a very necessary one from what i've seen in red keep in mind when these things were built back in the day things were much much different the way things were made and and i always think that sega always like over created everything like i think they've always made things much stronger than the other competitors like nintendo and sony and so on i believe that like if sony was around today they'd still be making the most solid hardware on the market so everything's back on i don't have any weird things happening that works so that is very important because that's what that piece was meant to do now we're going to power it up plugged in now we're going to power it we have power oh wow there it's to my mic that is amazing that is absolutely amazing and i can feel the air moving in it's getting hot in here it's getting hot in here i take off all my no no not gonna do that i know you guys don't want to see it anyway but but i'm not going to do it and do not comment below if you want to see that anyway guys i hope you enjoyed this extra episode of the noctua i'm going to call the noctua fan mod because that is the only brand name that's in this is noctua noctua is also famous for making some of the best fans period okay that's why the noctua fan was chosen because they're a long-lasting fan they are not cheap by any means i think this fan was about 20 bucks canadian so it wasn't horrible but that's just a tiny fan right but they build their fans well whether it's their 20 fan or their 100 fan they're quality fans so that was what was chosen and the uh 3d printed kit is an aftermarket mod that people are doing and again i'll leave both links down below for that so if you're looking to do this mod this is one of the mods that i think is probably the most important mod of them all if you play your dreamcast a lot this is going to move a ton of air inside this console keep in mind this console is sealed everywhere else that is the intake that is the only intake which means that air is just going to flow it's just going to flow and then whatever a little bit that it can take out of there so that is actually awesome because now you're creating a little wind tunnel some people have put a plastic shroud or something inside just to direct the wind i don't think that is necessary as the system is not really altered in any way as far as what it used to be like with the optical drive in it versus the gdmu i still think the air movement's going to be about the same we're just going to have more of it anyway guys i hope you're enjoying this series of the ultimate dreamcast there is more to come for example you guys must hate the fact that your battery is dead in your dreamcast that's all i gotta say anyways until next time please subscribe if you're not subscribed to the channel and again there is more coming to this series and i hope you enjoy the ultimate dreamcast build until next time game over