[Feature request] more adjustable pump profiles

Hi,

 

i just recently switched from an nzxt 240 aio to the corsair 360 aio (H150i Pro).

 

First of all I'm really pleased with the noise of the pump in quiet mode, balanced is "ok" but doesn't full fill my silence needs.

In general I was satisfied with my old 240 aio, the pump noise was inaudible but the 360 version i tried made ****ty high pitch noises, got really frustrating...

(I tried 4 360 aio's)

 

In comparison the corsairs icue to nzxt cam software is way less overloaded and consumes at lot less resources, it's really amazing even when the opponent software got better but still was clunky an instabile.

 

In "cam" i got the option to control the pump depending on the liquid temperature, what made sense cause no one want a screaming pump while drawing a web page.

 

I understand that there is in general no option to use a Zero RPM profile for an aio pump but the available profiles don't scale with the temperature.

When the CPU is at 40C and I'm in balanced mode, the minimum rpm doesn't fall under 2000 rpm. On the opposite side there is nor real "overheat" protection with custom profiles.

 

Cause Ryzen 2700x is quite spiky with temps i used the liquid temperature as sensor point to control my fans an stop them vom random spinning while idling.

(For user who have problems with their system fans, use the vrm sensor for your fan profile, mine got to 60 degrees what i set for maximum fan speeds under full load)

When i use the quiet profiles on the fans there is no problem, the pump levels up from 1000 rpm to 2000 rpm and this worth about 7 degrees.

But on a custom profile even when the maximum threshold (100%) is reached, there is no change in the pump speeds:

 

This is quite "stupid" for an such smart software, the CPU goes to 80+ when I'm using handbrake to render some files. I would feel way much comfortable if this would regulate it self even with custom profiles or got an maximum threshold for maximizing the pump speeds.

 

Would it to be possible to change this behavior or is this maybe already planed?

 

a) I would be nice that the pump speeds works better with custom profiles

b) Way more sweater would it be to control the pump speed with an custom profile based on the liquid temperature.

 

Hope the reaches some ears

 

Regards from Germany

 

Footnote: The Vegance pro aren't displayed cause of an i think known issue with the latest agesa update on the amd plattform.

Does someone have a workaround for that?

Pump is going crazy on default profiles cause of the Ryzen Temperature spikes.

 

Or would that for corsair a thing to look into? Shouldn't be that hard to let the user have more control :/.

Some of your arguments seem to be at cross purposes here.

 

"I understand that there is in general no option to use a Zero RPM profile for an aio pump but the available profiles don't scale with the temperature.

When the CPU is at 40C and I'm in balanced mode, the minimum rpm doesn't fall under 2000 rpm. On the opposite side there is nor real "overheat" protection with custom profiles."

 

Yes, there certainly are not any zero speed pump profiles available. You would have 15 seconds or so until the PC shut itself down for protection. No one said you needed to run the pump at high speed for web browsing and you clearly are already using the Quiet one for that. At the same time, you've also already noted the maximum difference between the slowest pump speed and the highest is about 7C on the coolant. Therefore, you cannot overheat your CPU based on pump speed setting alone and pump speed is not a significant factor in coolant and ultimately CPU temperature. If you are -7C from TJ Max, it's not because of the pump speed. This is also confirmed with your notation about no change in performance between the 2160 balanced and 2850 extreme pump speeds. Typically with AIO coolers that have short loops and relatively low flow restriction, pump speed isn't very important. However, as you have seen through th temp data, there is a minimum pressure level that will cause an a notable reduction in flow speed and that is the +7C you see on Quiet 1100 rpm. Now, what might be interesting to find out is where the tipping point is in regard to pump speed vs coolant temp rise. It is not going to be a linear change between 1100 and 2160. Based on my playing around with the X62 Kraken in the past, that value is around 1650-1700 rpm. If anything, a 360mm might be just slightly more with more length, but that is probably splitting hairs.

 

The H150i and all other Corsair iCUE coolers should default to coolant temp control. I recommend you do not use CPU temp. Your graph certainly suggests you are aware of that and you have it mapped to H150i Temp (coolant temperature). Your graph is bit flat at the start and steep at the end for my tastes, but this is strictly user preference and you do as you like. Just remember that +1C coolant temp only equals +1C CPU temp. That means a steep fan curve slope in a short range (say 34-37C) will only make a 3C difference. Now when that might matter is if you coolant to CPU package differential is something like +50C and that means you have crossed 85C. I did not understand your second post reference to "pump is going crazy cause of the Ryzen temperature spikes". You appear to be on coolant temp and that won't happen and presumably you really meant the fans and not the pump itself.

 

I don't necessarily agree with your assessment of CAM vs iCUE and having spent quite a bit of time with the other Kraken owners in that CAM forum, I am not sure they have such a rosy assessment either. However, that is something of a moot point and you are assuming the control limitation is software and not hardware. I won't speak for Corsair, but some of the reasons suggested in the past for maintaining selectable fixed speeds vs dynamically adjustable ones are longevity and user error. 3 dead pumps on 3 X62 models in 13 months is an answer for me. I won't force anyone else to accept that and they can come to their own conclusions.

 

However, the second reasoning is displayed in the forums on a regular basis. Most people do not really understand how the cooler functions and why it works the way it does. We certainly try to explain that here, but most users likely never come to the forums at all, at least until there is a problem. Giving total pump control over to the user would likely result in quite a few people setting their pump to actually change with CPU temp and make it run up and down and up and down endlessly. Your fans and pump do not need to be reactive to CPU for the cooler to function. All of the CPU heat created underneath at the pins must be conducted through the CPU and then into the cold plate of whatever kind of cooler is in place. The cooler doesn't really cool. It moves the heat somewhere else to prevent the CPU from getting even hotter. For an air cooler. that means blowing it away. For a water system, that means transporting it to the radiator for dissipation... and then blowing it elsewhere. Heat removal for the cooler is a long run game. If you can dissipate the heat put in, then the coolant temperature will remain constant. If you don't, it goes up. But no matter what, you can't reduce the temperature below that CPU coolant to CPU temp differential. That is always going to be there. The most you can take out of the coolant in a pass through the radiator is about 1-1.5C. Coolant changes are going to be slow up and down.

 

It looks like the cooler is the only iCUE device you have. This means your best solution is to continue to use your Quiet pump/flat fan curve for your desktop work, then create another profile for more demeaning applications with the middle pump speed and a higher base fan speed to keep the coolant temp from building up early. That does require you to open up the app and make a click or two. I often suggest this and I am amazed at the negative reaction that "this is too much work", right before they enter a competitive FPS match in which they will make 10,000+ keyboard and mouse movements. Now it's not all that bad. A lot of us are hoping for some tool bar quick fan changes in the near future. Another option is if you have a Corsair keyboard or mouse, you can program these profile changes to a single key. I can change between three levels of profiles with three different pump speeds with my just one finger in about 1 second. You don't have to buy a Corsair keyboard to change profiles, but it does open up a huge number of options.

Edited May 3, 2019 by c-attack
Usual typographical and grammatical errors

Nice post c-attack, I'm going to look into programming my K95 into AIO cooling profile macros now, thanks for the idea!

as of the preview post resulted in deleting my post i will keep it a little shorter.

 

Overall I'm using Corsair products since i build PC's, PSU, RAM, SSD, Cases and sometimes fans, peripherals I'm not experienced.

 

I'm not greatly experienced in the modern versions of Liquid cooling products from corsair, i used in the past the non software base liquid coolers, like the h60 etc.... and at some point is switched to the nzxt mirror (pump head) coolers.

 

Now I'm experienced in the kraken series for some years, i used the 240 and 280 variants, the software was never a great but you had more freedom with controlling the pump and fans. (Had enough rage moments with the CAM software don't worry about it....)

 

I ran into some troubles while getting a 360 rad, was never out of using the last bit of cooling capacity, more of prestige in an huger case, i always wanted to do a 360 radiator. I tired 360 from fractal, nzxt and bequiet but they all had a pump whine issue, probably cause that the asetek pump isn't meant to be used for this huge rads, else i can't explain the issues i ran into.

 

I'm aware of custom profiles and binding the to a specific program, but in my case this isn't flawless, cause i use handbrake for video rendering and it only sets the profile when the program is in foreground. When I render some stuff i usually set the profile manually to it, this is working but human sometimes forget about it.

 

The problem i have with the freaking out pump is caused by temperature spikes (quiet profile), in idle with the ryzen balanced power profile it can peak for a second to 50°C, this results in immediately ramping up the pump to 2000rpm after few seconds it goes back to 1000 rpm. In that state you have a pump that is aggressively protecting the idle temperatures and this is ab bit annoying:

 

On the other hand when i use my custom profile, the pump i zero reacting to core temperature or the configured maximum temperature.

I understand that corsair want to protect inexperienced users and for that their are locking the controlling option for the pump, but making the pump "stupid" on custom profiles i find contra productive.

 

As you correctly noticed, between 1000 and 2000rpm pump there are about 7°C what is in Ryzen case quite important, with higher ambient temperature this would result in going above 80°C what wouldn't be dangerous but result in throttling the Core boost what wouldn't be great.

 

In my eye there would me multiple options to resolve this.

- Implementing a anti hysteria option that would wait a few seconds before adjusting the fan/pump speed, this would resolve the hole issue I'm facing cause the spikes are most of the time between 1-2 seconds.

(For me this is a mandatory software feature anyway, what should be in every piece of software, even my motherboard can do this :) )

 

- Let the pump react to custom profiles or at least higher the pump speed when set maximum (100%) curve is reached.

 

- Give us the ability to control the pump independently and/or with custom profiles

 

- Maybe adjust the default quite profile to a higher temperature or better up the general temperature limit to 80°C instead of 60°C, that' more realistic when i look on the core i7 head guns. (I mean the Maximum core temp temperature curve)

I would also welcome to see how the default profiles are working, but on the quiet profile it seams that 50°C is the first ramp up phase.

 

I'm sorry when i missed some of you answers, was a litte frustrating loosing an hour of text....

I had the same issue with my H115i Pro pump jumping between 1000 and 2000rpm when the CPU usage goes up. I think it might be a bug in iCUE because if I use Corsair Link, the pump stays on quiet (1000rpm) regardless of load.

I won't make the argument the current control system is perfect or there isn't room for improvement. A lot of these questions were asked when it launched and we don't seem to have moved sin the 16 months since. To me, that means we are not likely to see change. I will try and suggest potential solutions the best I can.

 

 

I'm aware of custom profiles and binding the to a specific program, but in my case this isn't flawless, cause i use handbrake for video rendering and it only sets the profile when the program is in foreground. When I render some stuff i usually set the profile manually to it, this is working but human sometimes forget about it.

 

Yeah, I am done with Linking programs to iCUE profiles. Between focus issues and some other glitches, it is more work or more jarring to use it this way. My suggestion instead is to set up a non-linked series of profiles at the top of your profile list, just for example: Quiet/x264/GPU render (or whatever). Each profile has different fan/pump settings, can be selected quickly, and will stay where it supposed to be. With a Corsair mouse or keyboard this becomes easier still and you can bind the three profile rotation to a specific key without the need to open the app. One button cycles between the three and you can use lighting or the OSD to let you know which one you're on.

 

 

The problem i have with the freaking out pump is caused by temperature spikes (quiet profile), in idle with the ryzen balanced power profile it can peak for a second to 50°C, this results in immediately ramping up the pump to 2000rpm after few seconds it goes back to 1000 rpm. In that state you have a pump that is aggressively protecting the idle temperatures and this is ab bit annoying:

 

In the early days several people reported the over-reactive jumping and I thought this was sorted long ago. That pump should not be reacting to CPU temp at all. It is supposed to jump to the next speed up when you hit a certain coolant temp threshold and I thought we determined that to be around 39-40C. If you are seeing something different, definitely take detailed note of how/when the trigger occurs and we can get Corsair to look at it. It should not be jumping on any kind of CPU load spike. I have taken my H115i Pro off and have a custom loop in place, so I cannot easily test the issue. However, I never saw this on my unit, but then I also spend almost no time on the Quiet 1100 rpm pump speed. It clearly has a detrimental effect on performance and I suggest it only for quiet desktop browsing, productivity software, etc.

 

I don't think you should ignore this and would like to get this thread noticed for analysis. However, for the here and now, you might be happier trying to strike a noise balance for the quiet work with the middle 2160 pump speed and then either using the case fans to try can cover the noise or something else in the room. Noise perception is funny. On a cold, still Winter morning, I cringe at the sound of my $200 D5 at 2000 rpm. Yesterday was hot, the AC was on and so was the ceiling fan. I can't hear it at all at 3000 rpm. None of that changes the issue with pump behavior, but something in the room is always going to be the loudest thing. I don't know anyone who likes the sound of an electric pump and the one in the $300 water cooler I just bought for the kitchen makes me want to re-task the H115i for that job. Make sure the pump is not the loudest thing in the room and that may mean making something else relatively louder.

 

Oh, and as for the website, I cannot tell you how many hours/days/weeks(?) I have lost with glitched submissions or blank pages after load. Always copy your entire post before hitting submit. That saves me several times per week and the one time I don't it is guaranteed to be lost. Hitting CTRL + C now.

Corsair should make it so pump changes from quiet / balance / turbo depending on the coolant temp. (so far I haven't been able to do so with my H115 Pro)

 

I would love to have that pump in quiet when the coolant is at or below 28c...at idle times so the system is silent.

 

Balanced when the coolant is above that.

 

Turbo when the coolant reaches 32c or so.

 

If we could tune up those trigger values would be great.

 

What is to be avoided is the pump changing speed rapidly, if the temp oscillates between the threshold values. Maybe by changing speed slowly or once the temp threshold has been crossed (up or down) and stayed there for 5 seconds.

 

A 5s polling rate going to the pump will do it. The pump will only change speed each 5s.

 

For the record:

 

My old Thermaltake AIO pump ran fine at 1400RPM at idle and 2100 RPM at full load for years, naturally with spikes all over the place since the temp was being read from the CPU. The pump never failed. (Gen 4 Asetek)

 

1100RPM is too darn low for the H115i Pro minimum pump speed, that should be 1500RPM (only a beefier pump with a bigger impeller that moves more water could run that slow)

 

2100 for balanced is perfectly OK

 

2800 for turbo is also perfectly OK

 

Is the 1100 RPM Quiet mode that is for the most part unusable right now. Not only because is too slow but also because if the speed doesn't change the CPU gets real toasty if the user is not there to monitor the temps.

 

If we could dial in all 3 speed values for quiet/balanced/turbo (especially quiet) would be golden.

 

BTW: I run a sound studio so for me noise is critical. Should point out that the H115i with balanced pump speed works quite nicely. Still I would like it automated for those extreme CPU intensive jobs such as rendering / transcoding. In would appreciate if the pump stayed at 1500RPM during idle or light/medium tasks (for totally silent operation) and ramp up on heavy tasks.

Edited May 5, 2019 by Sacco Belmonte

BTW: Linking programs to profiles would work if ICUE was linked to "program running" instead of "program focused" (I already reported that, Corsair didn't listen)

 

It is extremely stupid as it is with "program focused"....you almost never leave a heavy render program focused while rendering simply because it takes time and you wanna do other things. So you open your Handbrake to transcode something, cooling is fine as long as the program is focused, but if you check something in Chrome the system will overheat.

 

I just tried now, if I open Handbrake, iCUE graciously switches to turbo mode, but if I focus Chrome iCUE ungraciously switches to my quiet profile. Not smart.

 

So this program linking thing is for the most part useless.

Edited May 5, 2019 by Sacco Belmonte

If it's so detrimental then Corsair should't let the pump sit at 1000rpm regardless coolant temp. The main selling point for H115i/150i Pro is it being quiet, how can that be detrimental for anything more than web browsing.

 

I run a quiet system and there's a very audible whine from 2000rpm+ that I find distracting. The pump in quiet mode is inaudible and I get decent coolant temps (~35c) for casual gaming so that's where I keep it.

 

However, I never saw this on my unit, but then I also spend almost no time on the Quiet 1100 rpm pump speed. It clearly has a detrimental effect on performance and I suggest it only for quiet desktop browsing, productivity software, etc.

 

Edited May 5, 2019 by rocsen

If it's so detrimental then Corsair should't let the pump sit at 1000rpm regardless coolant temp. The main selling point for H115i/150i Pro is it being quiet, how can that be detrimental for anything more than web browsing.

 

I run a quiet system and there's a very audible whine from 2000rpm+ that I find distracting. The pump in quiet mode is inaudible and I get decent coolant temps (~35c) for casual gaming so that's where I keep it.

 

You are using the Quiet pump mode in exactly the manner for which it was intended and the same as I suggested and you are complaining? It has a clearly measurable temperature penalty (the +7C which the original poster alluded to) and the comment is intended as a warning to those who set everything to Quiet and then run Prime 95 small FFT and Blender at the same time and complain about the temps. Oddly, there are an equal number of posts whinging they should be able to set everything to Quiet and the system should automatically change itself to do what's best based on current load. It clearly says "detrimental effect on performance" not "detrimental to the health/longevity of the cooler". That is the danger of pulling words out of context and I don't have time to write unassailable boiler plate for every post. I most certainly did not say "Don't use Quiet mode. You will harm your cooler". I did say I prefer not to use it because of the negative impact on temperatures.

Edited May 5, 2019 by c-attack

 

The problem i have with the freaking out pump is caused by temperature spikes (quiet profile), in idle with the ryzen balanced power profile it can peak for a second to 50°C, this results in immediately ramping up the pump to 2000rpm after few seconds it goes back to 1000 rpm. In that state you have a pump that is aggressively protecting the idle temperatures and this is ab bit annoying:

 

Give Windows Balanced power plan a try for Ryzen+ if using XFR/PBO and not a manual overclock. You may see lower temps, less fan noise, and same performance when needed. Processor minimum power state for WBPP is set to 5% while RBPP has a much higher, maybe 95% setpoint.

Give Windows Balanced power plan a try for Ryzen+ if using XFR/PBO and not a manual overclock. You may see lower temps, less fan noise, and same performance when needed. Processor minimum power state for WBPP is set to 5% while RBPP has a much higher, maybe 95% setpoint.

 

Sadly this ist not helping fully, still peaks.

I undervolted my Ryzen 2700x but yea....

 

I won't make the argument the current control system is perfect or there isn't room for improvement. A lot of these questions were asked when it launched and we don't seem to have moved sin the 16 months since. To me, that means we are not likely to see change. I will try and suggest potential solutions the best I can.

 

Totally agree, would be nice to see some progress, but i have no idea how the start with this software was.

Would love to see some official reply on this, but hey at least it is a clean piece of software with some room for improvement.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Nachtviech

Am I missing something? With my h115i I cannot have a custom curve (or values) on the pump.

 

You cannot assign a curve to it, it is greyed out (The pump) while you are editing a custom curve.

No, that is the request being made. They (and others) would like a fully adjustable, dynamic pump control with a programmable control curve. On all Corsair coolers, you are limited to 1-3 fixed speeds, depending on model.

Does any other AIO have fully variable pump? As in one that ramps up/down slowly?

 

I think changing speed that way is not good, right? (pumps aren't happy with that) Having 3 discrete speed modes is better.

 

That said, my old Gen4 asetek pump thermaltake AIO was connected to a fan header and I allowed it to ramp up/down and after several years the unit never broke.

 

What we need is a way to automatically switch modes using 2 user defined thresholds. From quiet to balanced and from balanced to turbo. That would put less strain into the pump. (unless the Gen6 pump can take it)

 

Corsair, are you listening?

Edited May 10, 2019 by Sacco Belmonte

The competing NZXT model mentioned earlier in the thread does have an adjustable pump. The problem is not that is adjustable, but the potentially the manner in which is implemented. Even the above referenced adjustable model was being improperly controlled through the CAM software for much of its early life. It defaulted to CPU temperature and would ricochet all over the place on a normal installation. I was using a X62 at the time and tried to bring this their attention, but it was likely talking to a fence post. I think having a user adjustable "trigger speed" would be nice, but at present that is not an option. The best advice I can give is for those that need an easier switch from Quiet 1100 to something fast on Pro models is to make 2-3 different profiles for the task and then bind a key to cycle between them. In some ways that can be better anyway. My D5 runs from my Commander Pro and will make a jump to a higher speed at XX degrees. The problem is like all temperature management, as the room and seasonal temps change, the scale shifts and I have to either fiddle with it too much or have it trigger an an unneeded time. I probably should follow my own advice and bind a key to shuffle between the two speeds, although if you primarily use your profiles as lighting variations, this can get tedious.

So how can I bind a keystroke to a profile? Do I need a corsair keyboard? Edited May 10, 2019 by Sacco Belmonte