H100i v2 might be on its deathbed

[sansoo22]

I've had an H100i V2 running flawlessly on my FX-9590 for nearly a year. In the last month I have been having stability issues. Under load the PC just freezes. I know the FX-9590 is a terrible CPU and stupid me for buying it. Anyway for the longest time I never ran the Corsair link software and could do pretty much whatever I wanted to with this PC and temps never broke 58C in HWMonitor. In the last month validating builds in VS2017 have caused it to start freezing. What can be even worse is validating the Javascript in Eclipse where it reads thousands of tiny files. This PC can be rock solid for days and then one day be so unstable its hard to get any work done with it at all.

 

Symptoms:

1. Random clicking sounds from the pump.

2. Temps will spike like crazy. Even the pump temp will spike to around 50C. The fans will kick on full blast but it doesn't help. When this happens one of the water tubes is VERY warm. This behavior is sporadic and hard to determine if/what causes it.

 

Steps to fix this:

1. Pulled pump, CPU, cleaned both with 91% Iso Alcohol. Reapplied thermal paste and put everything back together. I've done this twice and nothing helps.

2. Installed Corsair link. Pump reads ~3000rpm and fans ~1200rpm.

3. I've laid the case on its side for awhile to see if air was stuck in the pump.

 

Idle temps are pretty good. Its an FX-9590 and has been twitchy like a meth addict since i got it but it hovers between 18-28 at idle. Load temps when its stable are 45-60. When its unstable it will shoot up to about 74C before it freezes and like i mentioned earlier the H100i will report a pump temp around 50C.

 

The other thing i noticed is when the pump gets warm it takes forever to cool back down. I have a spare FX-8350 I just pulled from another PC that i want to use but I want to make sure the pump isn't faulty before doing this.

 

I've been combing these forums for days and I'm pretty sure the pump is acting up. I've owned several Hydro series coolers going back to the H50 and this is the first one I've had any issue with so I want to be positive its faulty before attempting an RMA.

 

Thanks.

[c-attack]

Symptoms:

1. Random clicking sounds from the pump.

 

Concerning. Clicking and popping is never good.

 

2. Temps will spike like crazy. Even the pump temp will spike to around 50C. The fans will kick on full blast but it doesn't help. When this happens one of the water tubes is VERY warm. This behavior is sporadic and hard to determine if/what causes it.

 

50C coolant temp is getting pretty warm unless you have substantial additional heat from other sources (SLI GPUs, etc). This in combination with the below suggests a problem.

 

When its unstable it will shoot up to about 74C before it freezes and like i mentioned earlier the H100i will report a pump temp around 50C.

 

The other thing i noticed is when the pump gets warm it takes forever to cool back down. I have a spare FX-8350 I just pulled from another PC that i want to use but I want to make sure the pump isn't faulty before doing this.

 

That is the other hallmark of a flow problem. The coolant does not comes down in temperature since the water is not circulating. A reported pump speed does not guarantee the fluid is actually moving around in there. Based on your evidence, it appears your pump is going out at random intervals. Take steps to secure a replacement or go through the Corsair RMA process. You'll need to keep an eye on it in the meantime. If you want to be thorough, check to make sure any power connections for cooler are secure, try them on other headers, look for damage to the wire, etc. However, the 'clicking' suggests the problem is mechanical in nature.

[sansoo22]

Thanks for the advice. I do have SLI but currently both cards are at 47 and 42 respectively. None of the work load so far that has caused a crash has been graphics intensive. It did crash once using ffmpeg to switch mkv to mp4 but all of those vids were h.264 so that should be all CPU intensive work.

 

Just to verify the "clicking" sound is coming from the pump i pulled all my fans and both vid cards and tested them all on my work bench. Well, by work bench I mean my ancient LGA775 but it posts and lets me power things on. I had one fan in a vid card making a slight rubbing sound. All 3 of my Fractal GP14s were dead silent on the work bench.

 

So i powered the main pc back on minus the one vid card that had the odd sound. And to my surprise no clicking sound. I thought Hooray...and then just cuz im a jerk i tapped on the pump and the clicking came back. (insert sad panda here) So again because I'm a jerk i tapped the pump and the clicking is gone.

 

As of now I trust this cooler less than a fart on taco tuesday. So unless someone can confirm clicking sounds are supposed to come from it I'm probably going to attempt an RMA.

[snapper69]

I can confirm that clicking is NEVER good, so I would use the Support Ticket System link above your post to start an RMA (you will have to register for it, as your log in from here won't work)