Platinum H115i RGB - High liquid temps

[andrew89898]

Hi, I have had my AIO cooler for about 2 years it's been doing well so far load temps up to 70s and cools my 3800x even if idle is usually 40-50 I think due to web browsing and fast single cores. However I have noticed recently the liquid temp can be as high as 50C in iCUE when playing games and just checking now about 15 mins after playing about 42-44c. This seems very high and the radiator is mounted on the top of my PC, it's getting pretty hot and heats the room too. I think there might be some dust on the radiator I need to clear out but could that really cause these insanely high liquid temps? I hear it should stay in the 30s, pretty close to ambient. The room temperature should be in the 20s, I'm in the UK. 

 

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[LeDoyen]

if the fans are set to exhaust, then it's likely to be the hot air from the GPU having a go at heating up your AIO.

your hardware profile seems to be out of date. If you could update it and maybe post a photo of your rig to have an idea of your airflow setup, it could help a lot

[c-attack]

You will only be ambient with minimal to zero load.  That is the lowest possible value and the ambient temperature in question will be that inside the case where the radiator is located.  It's not unusual for people to see higher coolant temps when gaming than a CPU stress when running top exhaust.  That is the GPU's waste heat being drawn into the radiator.  We can look at your system, but dust won't be a real factor unless it's a literal blanket across the radiator.  

[andrew89898]

Just updated my profile with my current PC specs, yes the fans are set to exhaust out the top and definitely internal temps have been way higher since getting my RTX 3080 - its got 3 fans blowing into the case, but GPU temps are in 60s, so good there. 

[andrew89898]

The dust looks like this

first pic is now / currently running other is a few months ago.

is that bad enough to have a major impact?

Edited October 29, 2021 by andrew89898

[LeDoyen]

With GPU temps in the 60s, you can guess the radiator is exhausting 50+ °C air in the case and even with the intake fans bringing some fresh air, that will raise by a lot the base temperature you can have on your AIO.

You could take the fans out, dust the radiator, and reinstall the fans as intake to test.

That dust looks pretty caked in.. it would definitely cut a lot of airflow, even if there's still some passage towards the center of the fan

Now uh.. am i seeing wood on top of the case? ^^ is it in a desk cabinet? That would make it a cooling nightmare, recirculating hot air constantly.

[c-attack]

I would take a run at getting some of the dust off too.  Cleaning will not drop your coolant 5C, but once you get a foundation then more and more dust piles up and things can get out of control.