Water flow only when tower placed flat on floor

[divined2004]

Dear all

I completed my corsair water cooling starter kit with non corsair gpu water block. However, I am experiencing difficulty with getting the flow working properly. I am using soft tubes and there quite some twists in my closed loop. I have connected my loop as follows :

1. outlet from the xd5 (bottom left port) to the radiator left input on the bottom, when placing the radiator vertically.

2. The right output of the radiator to the input port of my 3090 gpu water block.

3. The output port of the gpu water block to the input port of the corsair cpu block (the one with the triangle structure).

4.The output of the cpu water block to the bottom right xd5 inlet port.

Am I doing something wrong? I tried to avoid twisting the soft tubes as much as possible but they did twist when I screwed them using the corsair fittings.

The xd5 water pump is not connected to the control unit now and is only visibly working when I place my desktop flat on the floor and thus the pump is parallel to the floor. It is making noise in this position but not much. I don't how loud it can get.

Any suggestions?

 

Regards,

George

[LeDoyen]

oh my god.. all the tubes are collapsed, there won't be any flow.

You have to redo the tubing installation.

I believe what you did was push the fittings in the tubes then screw the fittings in the parts.

What you should do is screw the fittings to the parts first, then slide the caps on the tube, push the tube on the fitting, then screw the cap to secure the tube. This way they stay perfectly straight and don't twist.

 

When you push the tubes on the GPU and the pump, be careful, and hold the part to avoid bending of the GPU, or stressing the pump mounts.

Also regarding the pump, i guess it's normal it's not making much noise since the loop is completely blocked. if it's making noise when it runs dry (which you should avoid!) it means it's getting power, so once you fix the tubing problem, it will run fine.

Edited December 30, 2021 by LeDoyen

[divined2004]

Hi LeDoyen

Thank

Yes,  this is my first attempt and I did it as you said. I will try to do it again. Have to get the water out first.

Thanks,

George

 

[divined2004]

Hi all

I fixed the plumbing. Thanks @LeDoyen  the flow went fast when I next turned it on. However,  I left it for a couple of hours and then attempted to enter the bios. The system does fire up but after a the screen goes blank. Could there be something wrong with the the gpu block? I can still see my keyboard operating after that.

[c-attack]

2 hours ago, LeDoyen said:

What you should do is screw the fittings to the parts first, then slide the caps on the tube, push the tube on the fitting, then screw the cap to secure the tube. This way they stay perfectly straight and don't twist.

This ^^^^^. Common first time mistake. Always screw in the barb first, slide your locking rings onto the tube loose, then straight push the soft tube end over the barb. Only when things are as you want them, then slide the ring down to the end and tighten on the barb. Any kind of tension in the tube will have an effect on the way the tube hangs. You don’t want to be running this in the current state and you likely need some more soft tubing. Once you collapse or crease the tube, a weak point is created and it will try and bend there again. 

[c-attack]

2 minutes ago, divined2004 said:

bios. The system does fire up but after a the screen goes blank

Check the monitor cable back to the gpu. Replug or power down and restart to try again. Could be a simple signal miss on power on. 
 

[divined2004]

I will replace the tubing. For the signal lose problem. I can enter Bios and play with the options but the screen goes blank after half a minute. One of the gpu power outlets flapped a bit on connection but I do not see anything broken.

[LeDoyen]

maybe making sure the PCIE cables are secure on the GPU. I can't see how they are on the picture. And yea, check connections to the GPU output; and to the screen.

no need to wiggle in.. that losens the socket body, and makes the connector sit inside loosely too. Pushing straight in is enough

I personally find that displayport sockets are sturdier than HDMI, so if you were using HDMI, and your monitor supports displayport, you may want to try one of these sockets, just in case the HDMI got stretched (if you have a DP cable of course)

[DevBiker]

3 hours ago, LeDoyen said:

no need to wiggle in.. that losens the socket body, and makes the connector sit inside loosely too. Pushing straight in is enough

Yes. And make sure that the clips lock so you have a solid connection.

[BlaiseP]

4 hours ago, divined2004 said:

bios. The system does fire up but after a the screen goes blank. Could there be something wrong with the the gpu block? I can still see my keyboard operating after that.

If you are using a NVIDIA 30-series GPU and connecting via DP, make sure you are using a certified DP 1.4 cable.

Edited December 30, 2021 by BlaiseP

[divined2004]

Hi all

 

Thank you for your replies.

  Eventually, something seems to have gone wrong with the GPU. I tried another one and it is working fine. Back to the loop now. No twists with some new tubing and I bypassed the GPU waterblock since the alternative GPU is using air cooling. What I notice, is that once the tubes are full with cooling liquid there is not much flow going on. I would suppose that the XD5 pump would be constantly pushing fluid around. But this does not seem to be case for me. I have the tower not sitting upright, as it should  and I pretty much don't see activity.

  I installed the iCue controlling software and I see 0 rpm for FAN 6 (the one where the PUMP FAN is connected according to the instructions). I attached a screenshot. The RPM is listed as 0? Why is this is so?

 

 

[LeDoyen]

seems you have something like WHifo64 or Aida64 running in the background.

your voltages and speed readings are messed up, it's going to interfere with speed control since iCUE can't read anything.

At worst, the D5 will run at a minimal speed so there's always flow but it may not be visible.

Have a look if you're not running another monitoring program in the backgroud and close it. Usually it's HWinfo, HWmonitor or Aida64

[cdj77]

Wtf did just happen here... How could you possibly look at this and think "I'm all set" and turn on the PC. What a mess. Please educate yourself before assembling an especially pricey build like this. Really sad thing to see, it's a miracle there weren't any leaks...

[divined2004]

Hi all

 

To @cdj77: Actually, I did see quite a few videos on water cooling from various sources. However, none got into the details about how to actually connect the fittings with the soft-tubes. They just went on with some cool music and a fast-forward of the assembly. So, I made this stupid guess on my own. The first clue I got as to what I was doing wrong was from @LeDoyen, and I thank him. It seems so self-evident now but somehow I failed to see the correct way to do it two days ago. Fortunately, there was no leakage. I had searched for evidence of it even when still having assembled my first spaghetti-twist water-cooling solution.

@LeDoyen: Actually, I was using HWINFO64 to monitor my temperatures. However, I believe that my mistake was on the iCue controller itself. I believe that Corsair has not done a very good job with the manual and I had to do some guessing as to the functionality of the ports. My error was an assumption I had made about the two USB ports on the controller. I assumed that I could connect it to the USB 2.0 ports of my computer case. It was not working so I disconnected it and voila, iCue seems to be working.

 

Thank you all and I wish you a happy new year.

[c-attack]

Glad to see things are back together.  The next step you will want to take it getting the fans under control.  The Commander Pro does not function well as a fan controller without explicit direction.  Those three presets (Quiet, Balance, Extreme) are worthless and will keep your fans pinned at 1500 all the time.  You've figured that out and made a custom curve, but CPU temp is not the right control variable for your fans.  The CPU temperature will come and go, but it is cooled by conduction from the metal cold plate and then picked up by the water as it passes the block.  Fan speed has no effect on this. 

 

The fans and radiator are part of the heat removal team and regulate the coolant temperature.  Your coolant temp (28.8C in the shot above) is the measure of how much heat is in the system, less the ambient temperature of the case.  Coolant temp is the minimum possible component temp with zero voltage.  In simple terms, +1C to coolant = +1C to CPU temp the same for cooling.  So regardless of what your CPU is doing, you can't make it cooler by changing fan speed unless that brings the coolant temp down.  Coolant temp does not go up, then you don't need more fan speed.

 

In the screenshot you are linked CPU package temp.  That is going to cause the fans to jump around a lot and they don't need to.  Slow and steady does the job.  Try using the second curve preset from the left.  That is a copy of the AIO quiet preset.  Then change the sensor to Commander Pro Temp #1 (your coolant temp above).  That is a reasonable place to start and you can then change the dots as you see fit.  Small changes in fan speed do not have a meaningful effect on hardware temp, so if it seems to loud you can take it down some more with minimal penalty.   

 

**You can still use HWiNFO at the same time as CUE, but you need to exclude the Commander Pro from the HWiNFO monitoring.  It WILL lock up your fans and give you garbage data in CUE.  Also, since the Commander appears to be your only device in play, once you get your fan curves dialed in from coolant temp, the Commander can read that value at all times, with or without the software.  You will not need to actively run CUE if you prefer something else although it does place more limits on Corsair lighting options.  

Edited December 31, 2021 by c-attack

[divined2004]

Hi @c-attack Thanks for the information.

I changed the linking to the commander pro sensor and it seems to be coming out good.  However, I am still using my custom curve because when I click on the 'Balanced' preset it comes out blank.

 

  Finally, if I might, I have one final question regarding the iCue controller and the RGB light controller which was included in the Corsair starter kit. In my case, I have connected both. I connected the FAN cable of the three included 12" fans to the iCue controller and the RGB cable to the RGB light controller. However, I do not see any light on my fans nor can I see them in the iCue software.

[c-attack]

25 minutes ago, divined2004 said:

However, I am still using my custom curve because when I click on the 'Balanced' preset it comes out blank.

Correct. The original Quiet, Balanced, and Extreme curves are useless. Put them at the bottom of your list. However, you can create copies of the real presets for water cooling by using those shape tools in the lower right corner of the graph. Either way, your current curve is fine and most people will end up tweaking points here and there as they learn their normal range. Your expected coolant temp will likely be between 28-40C, so that ends up being the working part of the curve. 
 

Most Corsair RGB controllers require manual setup. So if you have a XC7 cpu block and an XD5 pump connected to RGB channel 1 on the Commander Pro, then you must go to Lighting Setup and tell it “Hydro X -> XD5 + XC7” in order to generate the necessary LEDs. That will make them appear in the Lighting Effects UI. 
 

I feel like I should recognize those fans, but I’m drawing a blank early in the morning here. If they are Corsair LL fans, then you designate the fan type (LL) and number in Lighting Setup. The fans in those packages seem to change depending on exactly which package you get. Be aware the program will allow you to lie to it. So if you tell it you have QL x 6, it will show you 6 double sided QL fans and animate lighting patterns in CUE. Where it gets tricky is this will also create actual lighting on your real fans, just in the wrong proportions.