Is the Noctua NH-D15S L.N.A cable causing thermal issues?
It's actually hilarious that a top-tier cooler like this could cause my CPU to swing its clocks. I was using the L.N.A (Low-Noise Adapter) on my Noctua NH-D15S, which capped the fans under 1200 RPM. When rendering dense jungle foliage, the core temps were jumping between 82-88℃, triggering some light throttling. I tried turning off Ambient Occlusion in-game, which gave me 5 more FPS but made the game look like a PS2 title—a terrible trade-off. I finally ripped out the L.N.A cables, plugged the fans directly into the PWM headers, and set the curve to hit 1500 RPM at 80℃. AIDA64 showed the peak temps drop from 88℃ to a stable 72-76℃, and the clock swings vanished. The first time I booted without the adapter, the fans blasted at 100% for a second and nearly gave me a heart attack, but a smooth start-up curve fixed that. Temps now sit at 74℃ and the input response feels way more snappy.
