Razer Core Disassembly & Fan Location Guide

I was having an odd, oscillating whirring noise coming from the core intermittently so I took some time to disassemble and determine fan locations. It's only 2 weeks old or so, but I'd rather fix it than have to send it off and worry...especially since it comes and goes.

I'll also indicate fan locations/purposes. It can aid in properly telling Razer Support which fan is bad, or guide you to your own repairs if you're so inclined. Some people have just arbitrarily unplugged certain fans, but as you'll see below-- some are more critical than others.


Step 1: To begin, disconnect everything from the outside of the core & remove your GPU. Standard disclaimer begins here. I'm not responsible for damage, watch for static discharge, etc. Lift this little spring out of the hole shown. You do not need to loosen the screw. Having the handle in the open position makes removal easier.


Notes: The plastic channel here is duct for expelling hot air out of the PSU/Razer Core.



Step 2: Remove the Torx (T10), long machine screw here. I unclipped the cable-ties holding the power cords in place on the side. You may not need to.




Step 3: Remove the 3 short Torx (T10) machine screws here:

Notes: If you have an especially well designed GPU from a "board partner", you might get away with unplugging the back or middle fan (if noisy / issues), but I would not so quickly unplug the front one since that helps cools the PSU. The fan connectors are in red and shown below:

• Left most: General air for Razer Core. Fan is towards back (by ports).
• Middle: General air for Razer Core. You can see the connector going directly to the largest fan in the system.
• Right most: Air intake for plastic channel to provide fresh air to PSU.

Step 4: Hidden under the handle are two small Torx (T10) coarse screws:




Step 5: Inside, remove the power connector from the PSU and either use a right angle driver like I have, or turn a 1/4" bit with a wrench. Screw here is the medium length, coarse thread Torx (T10).




Final Disassembly:
Now with everything loose, you can begin to tug to remove the plastic channel off the top of the unit. The 3 screws you removed in step 3 will get you some wiggle room on the bottom. The exterior handle may have to be moved back and forth to get the best angle needed. Unplugging the main ITX board connector is optional depending on what you're doing... the PSU can lay down along side the Core once it's out.

Re-Assembly:
For re-assembly, mount that top plastic channel on to the PSU before you attempt to re-seat it into the Core. Then just reverse the steps.

 

Step 6:
After removing the 4 screws from the power supply lid, you can see the fan I was having trouble with. There is a hidden 5th fan that is in the back of the PSU:




Step 7:
Once you're inside, remove this heat plate to help route the cable for the fan out and back in:




Misc Info:

• If you don't want to cut the existing cables off the included 40mm fans, you'll need to buy "JST 2-pin 2.0mm Spaced Connectors" to connect to the header. Looks like this... note the strip down the middle and the two pieces of plastic that semi-lock it into place:
  
  
  
• I'm a fan snob, so I only buy Noctua when it'll fit. The size you're removing is 40x20mm, but 40x10mm work too. Make sure you use a 12V Fan whatever you choose. http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a4x10-flx
  Update: Per my post below, Noctua later came out with this 40x20mm version!
  https://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a4x20-flx
  
  
• The fan headers supply ~1V when I had everything powered up in open air... so your new fans, nor the originals turn on until the thermistor or whatever dictate that it's time for them to come on. So don't panic when you hook everything up and they don't spin. (I did, and disassembled and probed everything to verify this, lol).
  
  
• Want to change the other fans? I've not endeavored there yet since everything's OK, but they appear to be JST 4-pin 1.0mm spaced connectors. The fans I looked at don't use any standard PWM color coding, so it will be fun figuring that out at some point too.

 

Hey there, no idea if you'll see this. First off, thanks for the guide. It was incredibly helpful for getting the damn thing apart. That being said, I'm a little worried about my fan installation. I used the little scotchlok kit that comes with the noctua fan and all seemed well but even under significant load for a decent period of time I haven't been able to see that fan spin up (verified by looking through the back grate at the exhaust one). Are they just used that seldomly? Not thrilled about going and buying a multimeter and disassembling the entire damn thing again to check. Also, have you tried replacing any of the other fans yet by any chance?

 

Hey there, glad it helped... and you are probably OK as long as you pushed those wires all the way in and clamped down hard. Really work your Core on a high end game for an hour and you should see them come on.

For the other fans, I'm only somewhat interested in the front-most fan on the bottom. This is the intake for the PSU and is the only other one that is loud. That one looks like a JST SH 1.0mm spaced 4pin connector which I have, but I have not settled on a fan to replace it with.

Noctua only makes a 60x25mm which will not fit, and the other available 60mm PWM fans I see online that will fit (15mm width) don't give me that warm-fuzzy-noctua feeling

I will post here again if I endeavor, but as of now the Noctuas kick on when needed and the thing stays pretty cool otherwise. If you have a card in there from one of Nvidia's board partners with exceptional cooling, it's hard to get the thing to heat up.

 

Thanks for the reply. I'll keep an eye on it and see if it ever actually kicks on. If not I'll have to take it apart again in a week anyway when the other noctua gets here since I cleverly didn't realize the power supply had two. The only other fan that gives me trouble is the middle intake on the bottom, probably because I have a toasty reference blower 980. It was whisper quiet with a 960, but considerably louder with the hotter card. It's not even a particularly unpleasant noise, it just runs pretty hard in high end games and is the most audible fan in the enclosure other than the little 40mms.

 

Hi

Thank you Lauski for creating this topic.
I'm also looking for a way to silence my Razer Core once and for all.
I just received my 40 mm Noctua fans and am still waiting for the JST connectors to arrive.
Once I receive them, I'll take the Razer Core apart and try to fool the magnetic sensor so that I can keep the Core open while running and measure the noise level from each fan.
Any more info from you regarding the 80 and 60 mm fans will be more than welcome.
So far, I'm considering those two 60 mm fans but I'm worried about the air flow :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Xilence-xpf60s-w-Case-Fan-60-mm-x/dp/B01L6PKKIO
https://www.quietpc.com/gel-silent6

And for the 80mm :
https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Maste...85408&sr=8-1&keywords=Cooler+Master+Slim+80mm
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083A0BIA/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATRDKIXG8BGKU

Have a nice evening

Toitoinou

 

Glad I found this thread, I just got a razer core and it's much more noisy on idle than I'd like. I believe the majority of the whirring noise is coming from the middle fan, can anyone tell me what size fan that would be and if Noctua makes a suitable replacement for it? Thanks in advance.

 

Hello
I took apart my Razer Core and replaced the two 40 mm fans, but the Core is still too loud for my taste.
I took some pictures of all the fans in order to look for the perfect replacement
Here are the model number :
2 x AVC DA06015B12U
1 x Forcecon DFB762012PS0T
2 x Delta Electronics EFB412HD

Toitoinou

 

The long-awaited follow-up (for like, 3 people, lol).
Ok, so first of all-- I don't recommend doing this. In the end, I think it's far too much work, and there really isn't a suitable replacement to quiet things out. I was going back into the core since now, Noctua offers a 40x20mm fan ( https://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a4x20-flx), which is a better fit for the power supply. While in there, I decided to go after the other fans with some custom-made adapters for putting a standard 3/4 pin fan into the Razer without modding the Core:


Here's the pinout. Please note, the JST 1.0mm 4pin Connectors I used were colored (GRN/YEL/BLK/RED) when looking at the exposed contact side of the plug, but yours may be different. PWM Coloring on top of photo is standard:


Inside the core, you are going to have to go deep to get all the fans out. Like, really deep. You have hours of work ahead of you to take it apart, route wires and put it back together. Set screws apart so you know what goes where as you take the pieces off. Several brackets, adapters, and supports have slightly longer or different screws. You'll need your Torx T10 again mostly, but also a T8, T6, and Phillips#00:


Why don't I recommend it? Well, the thickness of all three fans in the bottom are 20mm. You have space for about a 22.5mm tall fan, but that's it. 25mm's just won't work. I considered planing down 25mm PWM noctuas, which... I mean... I think it might BARELY work without bottoming out the fan, but sheesh -- This would be really something to go for!

You can find some decent 3pin "quiet" fans and they will work using my adapters-- but the Core is hard-set to use PWM fans. This isn't like a normal motherboard where you can set it to one or the other. As such, any 3pin fans you hook up will just spin at max speed. You can use the Noctua low-noise adapters, but you're going to always be at a set RPM, and the Core can't be dynamic given the heat it is experiencing.

I'm gonna click through all the links I've seen you guys add and see if anyone was more successful than me at finding what HAS to be a PWM (4pin) 20mm thick fan that's 80mm/60mm...

 

Nicely documented procedure. I too find the cores noise levels to be a bit too loud. It seems like such a shame for razer to not account for this in their destination process, although the usb hub isn't so hot either. Hopefully your efforts go well, as I plan to do the same mod as you if it does.

 

How did you made those adapters if I may ask ? I am in the process of replacing the fans, but this is the only step where I am stuck. I do not have any tools or experience in such things, but I am able to get all the cables / connectors and some neat fitting fans.

 

The one side is the JST 1.0mm 4pin connector. You can search for these online. I found some on Amazon without too much trouble in the U.S. Next, the other side is just a standard female PWM fan connector. Make sure if you're changing the fans you put in a fan that is PWM. Standard 3-wire fans are going to just run at full speed, I found from my testing.

 

Can you explain which cable jst is needed? Because I already have a 4pin but it’s a little larger than the Razer’s one. Do you think that this one are ok? http://s.aliexpress.com/VJfyqmq2

And I’ve not understood the pwm situation. It’s capable or not?

So the PWM fan works ok? How about the sounds? The 40x20 Noctua's fan are better than the stock one?

 

No, the "SH" brand is different than the "JST" brand. Make sure you get the JST 1.0mm 4pin. See if this link loads for you on Amazon: www.amazon.com/Exiron-Micro-1-0mm-Female-Connector/dp/B07FVSB3H1

So as far as PWM goes, let me be clear since there are some different fans in the core and I'm not sure which ones you're thinking about changing:

• Inside the Power Supply: No option for PWM here, but the 40x20mm Noctuas are the great choice. They come with 2-wire adapters, were much quieter and fit the space perfectly.
• Other parts of the Razer Core: The other 3 fans in the core are PWM, but due to their very skinny sizes, I could never find suitable replacements. Noctua did not make one at the time. I found a few 3-wire fans that would fit, but in testing they just ran at full speed all the time and were then noisier than the original fans.

Thus, I sort of concluded at the end of all this research: change out the power supply fans and it got the core quieter (and more consistent overall) to where I think a majority of people would be happy with its operation. Good luck!

 

Ah ok ok, thank you.

Well... open the PS it's not simple, so I think that I'll go for the 2m cable. Thank you anyway.