Temps went up H80i AIO

[Sparkythewonder]

Hello all

I am looking for advice on my cooling solution. I have a Corsair H80i AIO it's about six years old. I noticed my temps going sky high (idle temps now @ 50+ C with overclock 80+) Had to remove overclock just to use my computer. My question. My pump seems to be working (one hose is cool and one is hot no strange noises or "clicking" as I've read elsewhere) and idle temp with no browser will hover around 40C. CPU-Z shows voltage at 1.0 and even under stress tepms rarely went above 70C until about a week ago. Could it be the thermal paste needs replacing? or is it time to replace the entire unit? any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Edited January 23, 2021 by Sparkythewonder

[c-attack]

...My pump seems to be working (one hose is cool and one is hot

 

Unfortunately that is not normal and a major sign something is wrong. Typical drop in temperature one a single pass through the radiator is going to be about 1C. That is below the level of touch sensitivity and the hoses always should feel the same.

 

That combined with high idle temp strongly suggests you have some type of flow restriction or blockage. This is typically how things end on a "no maintenance" system rather than electrical or mechanical failure. You are going to need to go shopping for a new one.

 

Possible temporary solution is to tap the hoses and pump block to see if you can dislodge the blockage. However, this is temporary and there is no place for the stuff to go. It will come around again and ruin your day. If successful, it might get you through a couple more days.

[Sparkythewonder]

I appreciate the advice. I am prepared to replace the unit. As long as I just use the email I can use the computer just nothing heavy (even youtube gets up to 70C) So I will order a new unit Thank you so much.

[c-attack]

Yeah. You might be able to micro-manage to some extent. But since the coolant isn't getting the heat to radiator for dissipation, the coolant temp around the CPU will go up every minute you are powered on. Your CPU temp likely steps up +1C every 30-45 seconds. That is the coolant temp increasing and coolant temp is minimum possible CPU temp. In effect, it is transferring the heat back to the CPU like a warm bath. Once you get the minimum up to 50-70C, it will take hours for it cool down while powered off and the heat can release through the materials.

[Sparkythewonder]

You know that's what funny. I've been running for 4 hours and I'm still in the 60-65 temp range. Under load, it goes way up but just browsing it stays 40-70C does not go higher than that unless I play a game or something or have a lot of tabs ope. That's why I was wondering if it could be the thermal paste.

[c-attack]

More of function of it takes X amount of watts to raise the temperature of that volume of water by 1C. There is a limit and it won't go up indefinitely. Browsing you might be using 15-25W max on the CPU. Gaming will triple that and thus the temp goes up substantially more.

 

One of the keys to differentiating a contact issue (TIM or otherwise) and a flow issue is the idle behavior. With a working cooler and bad TIM/contact, you will get really high peak CPU temps doing simple things, like opening the browser. However, it will instant drop down to near normal levels the moment the voltage is reduced. You get a lot of 30-80-80-30-85-30C in the course of a few seconds.

 

With a cooler issue, the baseline keeps going up. So the CPU might have been idling at 30 the moment you cold boot, then it keep trickling up to to 50C. The 50 becomes to new minimum. If you are running Link, you will also be able to see this as H80i Temp (coolant temp). It's probably running 45-50C minimum almost all the time now. That is substantially out of the normal range and represents maximum possible load and temp conditions. Everything behaves normally, except the temps are all boosted by 20C across the board.