Concerns over H80 Pump

Hi all

 

A bit of background:

 

Recently I acquired one of the refurb h80s from scan, taking my first tentative steps into the world of overclocking before I put together a new build.

 

Up until now I've ran at stock speeds with the stock intel cooler. The heatsink and such were in a bad way and I used to reach into the 60s quite easily running under less than heavy load (I hate to think what would have happened if I'd tried a prime95 test!)

 

 

The 'problem':

 

I've attached the h80 correctly; pump header onto the CPU_FAN, 2 pin molex to the PSU and I have had the stock fans plugged into the cpu block.

 

Now, at no point since me having the h80 have any lights appeared on it anywhere (or at least not while I've been looking). Neither have I been able to get both fans spinning, I've had one spin at full revs for a moment before it decided it'd rather not and it's sticking by that decision.

 

Currently I have the two fans plugged into my CHA_FAN 1 and 2 on my motherboard and am using speedfan to keep them spinning at a reasonable sound level (I have no feedback as to the rpm so I have nothing else but noise to go off) and the cpu block is still plugged into the CPU_FAN header.

 

I've had to set all fan headers to Ignore within my BIOS to stop CPU fan errors every time I boot up.

 

So judging off all of this I'd say the the pump isn't working and perhaps I should RMA...

 

HOWEVER. My CPU temps have dropped right down since installing the h80. With my current overclock (3.8GHz) and a voltage of 1.3 (it was a quick job!) speedfan is right now telling me I'm running at 50 degrees.

Before the overclock my temps with the h80 were in the mid-high 30s, a significant drop from the 50-60s I experienced with my knackered intel cooler.

 

This has left me very confused. I don't want to RMA an unfaulty product so I thought I'd post this up here to see what you all think. Is the pump working? Surely it must be or the temps would have risen? Has my h80 become a glorified and rather elaborate heatsink?

 

I'm not too bothered by the fans having to be plugged into the motherboard; I'm most likely going to get some PWM fans as I've got an offset voltage working with speedstep and I'm looking to scale the cooling/noise with the workload/temp. I'm not trying to benchmark or really push anything, just squeeze a bit more life out of my ol' 950 before I go all skylake next year (fingers crossed).

 

So, is there anything I should be worried about? I haven't noticed any sound coming from the h80 when the fans aren't on but then my soon-to-be-replaced PSU is one noisy bugger (my fault, a slightly failed cleaning attempt...) and it could easily be covering any pump noise.

I have read about faulty connectors or wires being pushed loose, this however is now an area I know little about and have even less experience with. But could one pin on the molex be the cause of all this?

Could it be an issue with the ageing asus motherboard?

 

If this has been covered in another thread I apologize, I did have a look through and although I found similar threads none fully matched my problem. Though I could easily have overlooked one.

 

Thanks for any and all responses/thoughts.

 

 

Oh oh oh I just thought, while I'm here, on the h80's box it lists the static pressure value for the fans as being 1.6 - 7.7mm H2O. Is this per fan or for both running in tandem as a whole?

Just tried the firmware reset. Didn't do anything. No lights, no result. Thought it best to mention.

There are a few thngs to check. First, off, check back here after you've installed the new PSU. The old, damaged PSU may be (and probably is) the problem.

 

Also, check that the BIOS is set to not auto-adjust the fan speeds at all. Since you're using Speedfan, there should be no reason for the BIOS to struggle against Speedfan for control of the fans.

 

Something that may be worth considering is using a 3rd party fan controller. That would put the fans under your control, and away from the motherboard's control.

 

The H80's pump connector (the one that connects to the motherboard) is defintely connected to the correct fan header. The only fan header NOT controlled by the bios is that one, and the H80 (like all the H coolers) needs to run at full power all the time. It should not lower in RPM for any reason. It normally does not make an legible sound because the pump is a low-flow style pump.

 

If in doubt, RMA it, regardless. There is absolutely no reason to delay, if you believe your hardware investment is at risk. Corsair has one of the best warranty RMA policies on the market, and this is why many users (including myself) choose Corsair over other competitors.

Yeah I've removed fan control from the BIOS, that's all ok. A fan controller is something to think about, I've got the bays spare on the front of my case and they aren't too expensive.

 

PSU. This seems to be the one and is certainly something I need to address, I suppose even more so now I've started OCing.

 

I can't get a reading for the pump's rpm as I've had to 'ignore' it within my BIOS to stop the CPU fan warning on boot-up.... I think I'll switch this back to monitored and see if I can get a rpm reading. To hell with the angry beeps. I guess if the thing is spinning(?) or whatever then it's a fair bet it's working!

 

 

I tried killing the fans on the h80 last night to see if it affected my temps and sure enough core temps went up steadily till I turned the fans back on at 60 degrees. Again this makes me think it's working as without the pump running the coolant's circulation would be next to none.

 

I don't know why but I have an aversion to RMAs so I'ma going to hold off just a little bit longer look into this PSU business (even if it's not the PSU the whine it's developed alone warrants a new one).

 

Thanks for the prompt response. I now have a plan.

Ok.

 

So my psu actually died the other day and various hardware things have changed but the same issues remain. The short of it is I've decided to look into the RMA process. I'm fairly sure the pump is fine but I now have a new super I/O chip and speedfan isn't playing as it should, so I could do with those fan profiles.

 

Thanks Latharion for the advice, I shall be taking it :)