Required mounting parts:
Dear customer,
Congratulations on choosing the Noctua NH-L12S. Successor to
the award-winning NH-L12, the NH-L12S is a compact low-profile
CPU cooler that combines excellent compatibility, surprising
efficiency and remarkable flexibility.
Enjoy your NH-L12S!
Yours sincerely,
Roland Mossig, Noctua CEO
This manual will guide you through the installation process of the
SecuFirm2™ mounting system step by step.
Prior to installing the cooler, please consult the compatibility list
on our website (www.noctua.at/compatibility) and verify that the
cooler is fully compatible with your motherboard. Please also make
sure that your PC case offers sufficient clearance for the cooler and
that there are no compatibility issues with any other components
(e.g. tall RAM modules). Double check that the heatsink and fan
clips do not make contact with the VGA card or other PCIe cards.
Noctua cannot be held responsible for any damage or losses caused
by compatibility issues.
Should you encounter any difficulties, please check the FAQs on
our website (www.noctua.at/faqs) and don’t hesitate to contact our
support team at [email protected].
Multilingual versions of this manual are available on our
website: www.noctua.at/manuals
Removing the motherboard
In case you want to use the cooler on an assembled system and
your case doesn’t have a cut-out at the rear side of the mother-
board
tray, you first have to remove the motherboard from the case in
order to be able to install the supplied backplate.
Step 1
2x NM-IMB3 mounting bars
1x NM-IBP2 backplate
4x NM-ITS1 thumb screws
4x NM-IPS1 spacers
Place the backplate on the rear side of the motherboard so that
the
bolts stick through the mounting holes.
Caution: Please make sure that the three cut-outs in the
supplied backplate align with the screws of the motherboard’s
stock
backplate.
Installing the mounting bars
Caution: Choose the alignment of the mounting bars according to
the desired final orientation of the cooler:
Step 3
First put the plastic spacers onto the bolts of the backplate, then
add the mounting bars.
Attaching the backplate
Caution: The supplied backplate will install over the motherboard’s
stock backplate, so the motherboard’s stock backplate must not be
taken off.
Step 2
Orientation A
Orientation B
Noctua NH-L12S | Installation Manual | LGA115x
LGA115x
Caution: Make sure that the curved sides of the mounting bars are
pointing outwards.
Fix the mounting bars using the 4 thumb screws.
Caution: Gently tighten the screws until they stop, but don’t use
excessive force (max. torque 0.6 Nm).
Applying thermal paste
If there are residual traces of thermal paste or thermal pads on
your CPU, please clean them off first. Then press a small drop
(4-5mm diameter) of NT-H1 onto the centre of the heatspreader.
Step 4
