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H115i Pro Pump Won't Stay at Quiet Speed


RayzTheRoof

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There are 3 speeds for the pump, from what I gather they are:

Quiet ~ 1100RPM

Balanced ~ 2100 RPM

Performance ~2800 RPM

 

Selecting Balanced or Performance will always have the pump run at these speeds, in any preset or custom profile. However whenever I choose Quiet, it will go down to 1100 RPM and immediately go back to a Balanced speed around 2100. Is this intentional design?

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It is possible there is a coolant temperature trigger to boost the pump speed, but we don't have a lot of hard data yet. 1100 is pretty slow. I would recommend that for desktop work only and if you can't hear the performance setting at 2100, don't bother turning it down.
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I tried this ... it took on my system (I have the same cooler). I typically keep it on Balanced and can't hear it on that setting. Curiously, the cooler temp increased by about 0.4C when I had it set and immediately dropped when I put it on Balanced. I found this surprising because I didn't see the same kind of change in temp based on pump speed with my H100i V2.

 

What temp was your cooler, by the way?

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That does sound like there is some sort of trigger. Keep in the mind the "balanced" mode speed of 2100 is basically where "Quiet" mode was at the last generation of coolers. No other cooler I know of runs down at 1000-1100. That is fairly slow and I wonder if pressure becomes an issue with a long 360 radiator. This seems to be deliberately tied to the zero fan and low noise aspect of the Pro series. I am not a huge proponent of these applications. Even at the lowest possible fan speeds, you can much better cooling with the tiniest amount of background noise. From a theoretical perspective, you might want the faster pump cycle rates if the fans were not running. I don't know how much difference there would be at idle between 1100 and 3000 rpm with zero fan speed, but I think most people would then hear the pump at the maximum. We tend to be somewhat tolerant of fan noise, but the buzz of any electrical pump is much more noticeable.

 

Either way, I would think of Quiet on the Pro models as "Ultra Quiet - lowest possible noise threshold" for those with really sensitive, prickly hearing and a very low noise floor in their room. You should not be able to hear the pump at 2100 without sticking your entire head into the case or turning every single fan off. Use balanced as your default baseline and you can play around with the 3000 speed and see if it matters for loads.

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Interesting. It stays on the Quiet speed, but if I run a game and the CPU temps get into the 40s (usually in the 30s at idle), the pump will fluctuate between silent and balanced speeds.

 

Interesting. I'll try this out on my system later today or tomorrow. I've got a bunch of new stuff that I want - no need - to put in first (new PSU, new LL fans, wraps for the AIO hoses, wrapped SATA cables)

 

That does sound like there is some sort of trigger. Keep in the mind the "balanced" mode speed of 2100 is basically where "Quiet" mode was at the last generation of coolers. No other cooler I know of runs down at 1000-1100. That is fairly slow and I wonder if pressure becomes an issue with a long 360 radiator. This seems to be deliberately tied to the zero fan and low noise aspect of the Pro series. I am not a huge proponent of these applications. Even at the lowest possible fan speeds, you can much better cooling with the tiniest amount of background noise. From a theoretical perspective, you might want the faster pump cycle rates if the fans were not running. I don't know how much difference there would be at idle between 1100 and 3000 rpm with zero fan speed, but I think most people would then hear the pump at the maximum. We tend to be somewhat tolerant of fan noise, but the buzz of any electrical pump is much more noticeable.

 

Either way, I would think of Quiet on the Pro models as "Ultra Quiet - lowest possible noise threshold" for those with really sensitive, prickly hearing and a very low noise floor in their room. You should not be able to hear the pump at 2100 without sticking your entire head into the case or turning every single fan off. Use balanced as your default baseline and you can play around with the 3000 speed and see if it matters for loads.

I agree ... it does sound like a trigger. From a noise perspective, I can't hear the pump, even on performance, unless I have the case open and my head inside the case. But I'm getting old, too, and maybe my hearing's going out. Young whippersnappers may hear it more. I'm also quite intrigued that I actually saw a coolant temperature performance difference between quiet and balanced, even at a relatively idle load.

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I'm also quite intrigued that I actually saw a coolant temperature performance difference between quiet and balanced, even at a relatively idle load.

 

That part that caught my attention too and I have seen other people report this as well, including in the GamerNexus review. Now that I know the pump speed is only 1100 in Quiet mode, I have a better understanding why.

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I can hear the pump only on Performance mode if there is low noise from fans. I had the side panels off when I first installed the system and tested everything and the pump was 100% silent on quiet and balanced, but I could hear noticeable noise on Performance. But with fans running and panels closed, it's unnoticeable.

 

But regarding this post, my main concern was just having the pump switch speeds all the time. I don't know much about the durability of the AIO but I know pumps can fail and I don't want to cause undue stress from slowing and speeding up all the time. So I just keep it on Balanced :P

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No, the changing speeds is not an issue for wear and tear. Either a pump is designed to be adjustable or it is not. From a cooling standpoint, I would bypass the Quiet setting, but that is a personal choice. As for pump speed changes, the point of concern is when it cycles up and down endlessly in quick succession. That is usually a bad sign. Again, leaving it on Balanced should more or less eliminate this aspect entirely and has other benefits.
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I've not been able to reproduce this. I've had the pump on "Quiet" mode while gaming for a few hours and it stayed at around 1140 RPM. I also ran a 15 minute RealBench stress test where the pump temperature got to about 40C ... it it stayed at 1140 RPM.

 

What temperature did your cooler get to? Not CPU temp; that's irrelevant for this discussion. The cooler may have a trigger to kick up based on coolant temperature.

 

If nothing else, thanks for this ... considering the performance that I saw in "Quiet" mode, I'm sticking with "Balanced" or "Performance" for the cooler setting. It actually (much to my surprise) made quite a difference in cooling performance.

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Yeah and right now it is at 30ish and staying in Quiet. Maybe it ramps up with CPU load fluctuations.

 

Shouldn't be that either; remember ... I ran RealBench trying to reproduce the behavior and wasn't able to. Keep an eye on it ... perhaps turn on the logs ... to see if it continues to happen so that we can determine the trigger point.

 

If you want to, that is. Considering the difference in cooling performance, I'd keep it on Balanced, at least.

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  • 2 months later...
There are 3 speeds for the pump, from what I gather they are:

Quiet ~ 1100RPM

Balanced ~ 2100 RPM

Performance ~2800 RPM

 

Selecting Balanced or Performance will always have the pump run at these speeds, in any preset or custom profile. However whenever I choose Quiet, it will go down to 1100 RPM and immediately go back to a Balanced speed around 2100. Is this intentional design?

 

same problem

 

this noise is strong and very annoying

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  • 2 weeks later...

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