High water temp solutions

[capricorn123290]

I've got my PC up and running in an 011 Dynamic XL (HydroX custom cooled) but it seems the inside of the case is nice and toasty. When idle the water Temp sits around 9c above ambient with three 360 rads. CPU is around 40C, GPU around 34 with water temp sitting at 34C. When I put it under a gaming load with all fans at max (XD3 at 70%) the cpu shoots up to around 53C, GPU 57C and water shot up to 48C (23C above ambient). Water temp was way too hot for my liking as I haven't even overclocked it yet. My case Temp sensor has the internal case roughly equal with water temp at all times.

I took the side panel off and things turned around pretty quick during gaming. Water temp dropped to 31C (6C over ambient), GPU at 57C in just a couple of minutes. I wasn't expecting such a large drop. I have 10 QL120 fans running in this beast, at max for testing purposes. I know they aren't great, but I think I have another issue going on I can't narrow down. This case is heating up pretty good I guess.

I've tried a few fan configurations already

Top and back exhaust, side and bottom intake made a negligible difference. seemed the bottom rad was making the top rad useless.

All intake (the last one) did OK. Just cant seem to get the warm air out of the case fast enough.

Anyone have any other ideas, as having the side off gives me a 3C over ambient water temp during idle. I would rather not have to keep the side panel off to run with a decent temp.

[LeDoyen]

Maybe post photos of the PC, sometimes it helps ^^' If the PC is in a room corner or close to the wall, it will recirculate warm air in the area and gently cook itself constantly.

QL totally suck in front of rads, but not that badly usually. The best setup i've tried so far for airflow is back and side intake and top/bottom exhaust. Keeps the case under negative pressure, so it sucks fresh air through the PCIE brackets too which helps the bottom rad, the back fan feeding cooler air to the top rad.

It's a bit more dusty if you don't add a filter on the back fan (you can find 120mm filters on amazon), but you can get rid of the exhaust filters which will help the QLs.

 

[c-attack]

Can you be more specific about where the radiator(s) are located, the airflow direction, etc ?

[LeDoyen]

3x 360 rads, i believe there's not much choice hehe

[c-attack]

15 hours ago, capricorn123290 said:

three 360 rads

I see now.  Choices are limited with this and deliberately ran every possible configuration when I first got this case.  

1) Bottom/Side intake, Top + rear exhaust -> This requires a specific flow path.  You need to pick up your heat from the CPU and GPU, then go straight to the top radiator.  Since the top rad gets the exhaust air from the other two, it's only hope of adding to cooling effect is if has the warmest possible coolant (e.g., 36C coolant with 34C intake air).  Then at least you get some temp drop through the top.  In any other path configuration you will be heating the coolant as it passes through the top.  Ideally you would then like it to go side radiator then bottom last before returning to the GPU for pick up again.  

 

2) All Intake + rear fan exhaust ->  You have done this.  Not on my recommended list because it's not viable with the glass on.  You are making a glass hot box.  

 

3) All Exhaust + rear fan intake or removed -> Of the three, this has the best performance with one large caveat.  You need to remove the small side glass when gaming.  Whether that is an acceptable solution to you may depend on how you position the case.  Turned 90 degrees to right, you may not even notice.  Either way, with the panels on you end of starving the side wall radiator and can't get enough air into the case.  

 

 

Having spent a long time messing with all of these during the first lockdown, my suggestion is you drop a radiator.  Three radiators is not viable with the glass on, except #1 which I will discuss in a moment.  So now you can try....

a) Bottom + side radiator intake, top + rear free exhaust -> Benefits of direct intake and coolest possible air through the radiators.  Downside is you are still exhausting into the case.  So if your coolant delta is +8C when running at load, then the air in the case is going to be +8C and that is passed on to components like the RAM, VRM, chipset, and especially sensitive stuff like M.2 drives.  However, this is still superior overall compared to the #1 above.  You get a measly 0.5C reduction in CPU/GPU temp with the 3rd radiator in top eating the exhaust from the other two.  With it removed, you loose that but your ability to remove the waste heat form the case doubles without the radiator restricting flow.  This means you won't take internal hardware penalty nearly as hard as the 2 in/1 out set up.  For some people this is ideal, however it does create some visual imbalance with the top QL now tucked up against the roof.  I also find the bottom plate to be a bit restrictive and never quite get the cooling effect from the bottom radiator as I would expect.  If you look at the new O11, you can see Lian Li has modified that piece further.

 

b) Side + top radiator exhaust, bottom free intake -> You loose a few degrees on radiator intake air temp vs exterior air, but this likely only matters if you are trying to push an enormous amount wattage through the system.  If you are running a modded 3090 + 12900K with no limits at see 650W when gaming, then you might see improvements from small differences in intake air temp.  Most others will not be able to tell.  This keeps internal components cool and allows half of your radiator area is getting cool air directly from outside.  It also allows you to do a visual aid to help with the top/bottom QL balance.  I use a 25mm radiator shroud on the bottom of the case.  This makes it look like my 3xQL are sitting on a radiator, just like the top ones and gives me the visual aesthetic I need.  It was $20 and just sits there at that bottom.  Even without it, the bottom pedestal gives you a little boost and you could also get individual foam fan shrouds (5-10mm) to boost their height if this is an issue.

 

c) Either top/bottom radiator intake and side/rear exhaust or top/bottom radiator exhaust with side intake -> I have done both with a multitude of radiators.  This offers the natural visual balance.  You can't use a bigger 54mm XR7 size radiator in the top like in the side, so that makes it slightly less performance for me.  However, if you are working with two 30mm radiators, then this becomes a viable option.  Just don't do the bottom rad intake, top rad exhaust, distro plate side stuff all the internet O11 builds use.  That is the worst possible configuration you can do in a O11.  If you are a minimalist looking for lowest possible noise, the top/bottom exhaust can be run without side or rear fans.  That is a very quiet arrangement, but you are not likely interested in that and would prefer to show off all the QLs.  

Edited January 8, 2022 by c-attack
Predictive text error

[capricorn123290]

1 hour ago, c-attack said:

Having spent a long time messing with all of these during the first lockdown, my suggestion is you drop a radiator.  Three radiators is not viable with the glass on, except #1 which I will discuss in a moment.  So now you can try....

So, your saying I should just drop the third radiator? I'm not against this as I can still send the xr5 back, That would leave me with an XR5 and and XR7 (thick boy). I'm only cooling a CPU and GPU so it's not strictly necessary. It was more to give me more options in sizes and then they ended up all in the same build.

 

5 hours ago, LeDoyen said:

Maybe post photos of the PC, sometimes it helps ^^' If the PC is in a room corner or close to the wall, it will recirculate warm air in the area and gently cook itself constantly.

The pc sits next to a wall on the right side about and inch or two away from the wall under a floating desk. So, back against the wall and right side against the wall with a little room for air. About 12 inches or so below the floating desk. I would say it has decent access to fresh air, but not as good as if it was on the desk.

1 hour ago, c-attack said:

c) Either top/bottom radiator intake and side/rear exhaust or top/bottom radiator exhaust with side intake -> I have done both with a multitude of radiators.  This offers the natural visual balance.  You can't use a bigger 54mm XR7 size radiator in the top like in the side, so that makes it slightly less performance for me.  However, if you are working with two 30mm radiators, then this becomes a viable option.  Just don't do the bottom rad intake, top rad exhaust, distro plate side stuff all the internal O11 build use.  That is the worst possible configuration you can do in a O11.  If you are a minimalist looking for lowest possible noise, the top/bottom exhaust can be run without side or rear fans.  That is a very quiet arrangement, but you are not likely interested in that and would prefer to show off all the QLs.  

This is probably what I'm going to try and sounds like a good balance. Thankfully I went with soft tubing this go around and I can change around as needed.

I'm thinking XR5 on top as intake, XR7 on bottom as intake, Side and rear as exhaust. I figure this will give me enough to exhaust the hot air (and sounds like you have tested way more than I have).

Sounds like this is my project for this weekend. when I get time. I was just dumbfounded at the improvement I saw when I took the side panel off. I was looking at 4-5C over ambient at idle vs 10C. This case is definitely a hot box that requires special considerations when choosing parts/orientations.

[c-attack]

20 minutes ago, capricorn123290 said:

So, your saying I should just drop the third radiator? I'm not against this as I can still send the xr5 back, That would leave me with an XR5 and and XR7 (thick boy). I'm only cooling a CPU and GPU so it's not strictly necessary. It was more to give me more options in sizes and then they ended up all in the same build.

This was the conclusion I came to after 6 months of screwing around and trying every possible fit.  I also am using one standard 30mm and the XC7 54mm that fits perfectly in the side slot.  That also was part of the decision to do top/side exhaust.  If you do top/bottom, obviously the 54mm will go at the bottom.  I thought that would bother me because of the difference in thickness between the two rads, but it didn't.  I also threw on ML-Pro all around for that attempt instead of my QL to see if I could offset any performance difference.  No gain from going to the ML vs QL in the 400-500W range.  You need more for that to matter.  

 

20 minutes ago, capricorn123290 said:

The pc sits next to a wall on the right side about and inch or two away from the wall under a floating desk. So, back against the wall and right side against the wall with a little room for air. About 12 inches or so below the floating desk. I would say it has decent access to fresh air, but not as good as if it was on the desk.

Environment always supersedes everything else.  The perfectly designed loop is reduced to nothing if you throw the case in a cabinet.  So ultimately, you should decide radiator placement and air flow direction based on where it needs to be.  Sitting on the floor will bring more dust up into the case and top/side exhaust would allow you to filter the bottom without taking an airflow penalty.  If the backside of the case is wall bound, then backside intake may not be helpful.  I am sure you can figure that part out, but location requirements always trump this top/bottom/side stuff.

 

+4C coolant over ambient is about as low as I can get with this case.  The coolant will stay <1C above the case temp, but I have not been able to reduce the case ambient temp as measured at the ATX cable, chipset, or dead center air lower than +3C over the room.  I have the best possible environment for it, so that's probably the limit with the glass panels all on.  

Edited January 8, 2022 by c-attack

[capricorn123290]

Thanks for the help. This opens up a few configurations I haven't tried yet, and gives me something to play around with. This is my first custom water cooled build so it's been an learning experience.

[LeDoyen]

1 hour ago, c-attack said:

+4C coolant over ambient is about as low as I can get with this case.  The coolant will stay <1C above the case temp, but I have not been able to reduce the case ambient temp as measured at the ATX cable, chipset, or dead center air lower than +3C over the room.  I have the best possible environment for it, so that's probably the limit with the glass panels all on.  

sounds a bit high.. that was with 3 rads and the fans... slow?