Well, it finally happened; my trusty H100i is Biting the Dust

[Speed]

For months, while reading all of these posts about the Hydro Series having this problem or that, everything was running fine here; two H80i's and one H100i. (Grinding fans notwithstanding—I'll deal with that when things get sorted out on Corsair's end.) Yesterday, however, I came back into the studio and noted that the 650D case fans were on max, as if the system were under load. Checking, nothing is tasking the system and it should have even gone to sleep by this time. Looking at the temps, the CPU cores are at 59C; at idle. The other two systems are happily idling at 35C. Hmmm.

 

Checked the tubes and the lower one was warm. Upper was cool. Only warm section of the radiator is where the tubes attach. The rest of it is cool. Over time, the temps on the 3930k rose to 70C, then 75C. Tried maneuvering the case in different orientations to expel air perhaps trapped in the water block; causing cavitation and flow loss. No joy. Shut it down.

 

Upon reboot, after having let it sit to cool, the temp protection alarm triggered, preventing boot, and required an F1 to get into the BIOS monitor. Once in, the CPU is at 71C and rising. Once it got to 80C, after about ten minutes, I shut it down again.

 

Nest day I removed the unit to replace the stock TIM with Arctic 5, using the methods recommended by Arctic Silver; as I always do—figuring that this was a good first debugging step, as the symptoms indicated that, among other things, perhaps the TIM contact had failed.

 

Upon inspection, I see that the "shrouds", for lack of a better term, that cap the ends of the two tubes at each end have cracked and separated. I presume that these are to secure the tubes onto the hose barbs, much in the function of shrink tubing. Removed all four of them, because they were useless; replicating that function with narrow width tie-wraps applied at the valley between each barb; three on each connection. There is no evidence of leakage but, with the shrouds having failed, perhaps air has entered the system. Tipping and gently oscillating the H100i does not produce any liquid sound. The question does arise, as it is a possible cause of that which has been observed, below.

 

Once the TIM cleaning and replacement was complete and the unit returned to the 650D, I booted it up; hopeful to see a 39C idle. No joy. Started at 59C and slowly rose to 71C; same as before.

 

Observations:

• Pump RPM is a bit high at 2,390.
  
• CPU temperature slowly rises, doesn't spike.
  
• Lower tube (output from water block) slowly becomes very hot; advancing along its length.
  
• Upper tube (input to water block) remains cool.
  
• Radiator away from tank and tube connections is cool.
  

Indications are that coolant flow is impeded. When it gets to the radiator, the energy is bled off but doesn't get back down to the water block fast enough.

 

This leads me to conclude:

• The impeller has become disassociated from the drive shaft.
  
• There is a blockage of some sort in one of the tubes.
  
• Coolant volume no longer fills the system to the recommended level.
  

ALL of these would result in elevated pump RPM and slow heat soak in the output tube. Because no work is being performed moving the liquid, whether the system is full or not, it's operating in partial convective mode; barely keeping the CPU from frying completely.

 

Not happy. This is my main workstation and I'm down until this gets replaced.

[Awesomeo]

I'm in exactly the same situation as you. One hot, one cold pipe, radiator only warm at the one end. I also came to the conclusion that circulation was blocked at some point between the pump and radiator.

 

I managed to change my RMA to an Express RMA by ringing Corsair's US customer service team. If you're not in the US, you can use Skype to call them for free. They'll put an advanced hold charge of ~$95 dollars on your card, and ship you a new one.

 

I rang on Monday night, and haven't received my replacement yet. Mine is shipping from the Netherlands -> UK, which from experience takes 48-72 hours, so I'm hoping it'll be here by Tuesday. If so, the process would have reduced my downtime by 10-14 days at least, so definitely worth it IMO.

[Carl720]

I suspect my H100i too is defective although the fans work. Luckily for me my pc is under warrenty having been built 10 months ago to order by DinoPC and has been sent back for them to make good. It could be the O/C settings but I doubt it as even running the system on default settings the temps on idle were still around 35 deg c and under load in excess of 75 deg c. I have suggested that if there is an alternative cooler I would rather go with the alternative bearing in mind the Corsair Link is yet to work on win 8.1 64 bit systems, especially mine!

[Speed]

It could be the O/C settings but I doubt it as even running the system on default settings the temps on idle were still around 35 deg c and under load in excess of 75 deg c.

 

I don't know what you expect, but these are pretty decent temperatures.

[Speed]

I'm in exactly the same situation as you. One hot, one cold pipe, radiator only warm at the one end. I also came to the conclusion that circulation was blocked at some point between the pump and radiator.

 

Seems that way. Could be low fluid level that barely reaches the top of the output tube where it enters the radiator tank. Could be thickening of the fluid, so that it no longer freely passes through the water block heat exchanger fins. Could be a separation of the inner lining of the tubes, causing the diameter to narrow.

 

Lots of things to go wrong and, what with the leakage reports lately, I'm reconsidering the choice of liquid. The extremely convoluted software/firmware forest to navigate, depending upon which frammistat you have and whether it's a full Moon or not, doesn't help. Reading a recent user's workarounds to get the system to run by triggering batch files just isn't how things should be.

 

I really would like these units (3 at the present time) to work. You can check my system specs to see how all-in I went with Corsair stuff. Other than the grinding fans, my two H80i units seem to be doing ok. But then, my H100i was, too. And now this from out of the blue and I can only run the box long enough to get stuff I need off of it, so I can keep working using my 32-bit OS system.

 

Presently, I'm waiting on a current RMA to do the PWM fan replacements that seems to have a bit of a misunderstanding as to: a) how many fans and, b) that I don't have to ship these to Corsair before they ship the replacements. Until that is resolved, I'm waiting on opening an RMA on this issue, so that things don't become confused even more.

[hugin]

I will go for air leak into your system and that over time, the system have vaporized some liquid as well is my guess.

 

From my knowledge on other systems, bare in mind not similar, but still: I would think your issues lays in the lane of some leakage over time that has been minimal and thus giving you a blockage of air, making your system not flow properly.

 

Bare with me, my English is not the best, but I hope I made my self understandable enough for you and others to understand what I was trying to get trough...

 

Feedback on the issue would be great :)

[Technobeard]

The "shrouds" are cosmetic only. Speed, please create a ticket to have your cooler replaced.

[Speed]

The "shrouds" are cosmetic only.

 

OK, thanks for the confirm. The shrouds on our two H80i's are starting to do the same, so was a bit concerned.

 

Speed, please create a ticket to have your cooler replaced.

 

Will do. Any idea what may be holding up ticket #6500928 ? I've been waiting for the fan/firmware/software update program to reach something of a plateau before requesting PWM replacement fans for my units to quiet them down. I'd rather have them making a bit of noise and keep the hardware cool than risk Borking something by jumping for the latest and greatest too soon. Thanks, again.