AIO H100i Platinum at 100% after iCUE v5

[Moogule]

Hello. After I updated my iCUE to version 5, my AIO liquid cooling has been working at max speeds despite changing the different profiles. I tried changing some bios options like "CPU FAN MIN. DUTY CYCLE" but not affects the fans. Everything was working properly before the iCUE update. Any help would be appreciated. 

Edited August 1 by Moogule
more information

[Moogule]

This is what my CPU cooler and motherboard is:

• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i RGB PLATINUM
• Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B450-F

[c-attack]

Try a forced firmware update to reset the internal controller.  Go to the CUE settings 'gear' -> Firmware Updates -> check for update.  It will come back with "latest version" but reveal a 3 dot drop menu.  Select "force update" .  The AIO will go offline for 10-15 seconds as it reloads the current firmware. 

[Moogule]

thank you so much, it helped with my issue. 😄

 

[Cool Barn]

Thank you as well C-Attack, I was wondering why my fans were not doing what they were told.

Have signed up to the forum explicitly to thank you - great job  🙂

Edited August 16 by Cool Barn

[Cool Barn]

Hmm, seems like I need you again C-Attack or other gurus!

The "fix" does not stick.  When I come back into my computer room after a few hours, the fans are spinning at full speed again.

I also tried changing all settings on the commander pro to 4-pin rather than auto as you suggested in another thread.  This made the fans sound better for a little while, but the problem once again returned.

Should I delete the custom fan settings altogether and start again?  Or simply roll back to iCue 4 and just sit out iCue 5?

Thank you very much for any assistance  😊

[c-attack]

1 hour ago, Cool Barn said:

Should I delete the custom fan settings altogether and start again? 

I don't think so. The Platinum models have a history of doing this, although it should be something that happens maybe once or twice a year.  If it's doing it daily, that's a problem.  

 

It's not really clear why this happens, but something causes the controller to lock up at the device level.  The firmware update resets the controller.  If this were a CUE settings issue, then it should generally go away when you quit CUE.  This problem is generally more stubborn and will stick even after a hard power reset to the entire machine, indicating it's a device specific issue.  

 

However, this is not the only reason the fans might go full speed and there are ordinary reasons that are user controllable.  The issue discussed above is this "lock up issue".  All fans and pump and maximum.  No way to change it and CUE ignores all commands.  On the other hand, if just the fans max out and not the pump or it responds to instructions, it may be following it's programming.  You said you made a custom curve?  Were you using CPU temperature or the H100i Platinum Temp as the control variable (sensor) for the curve?  Is the H100i Temp unusually elevated?  Normal idle should be something like +4-7C over room temp.  If you are on the desktop and the H100i Temp is 50C+, that suggests a flow problem and is likely AIO related.  

[Cool Barn]

Hi C-Attack,

I'm at work at the moment so can't answer some of your questions just yet, but the problem immediately went away when I turned off iCue this morning.

iCue is not running on my machine currently.  When I get home, if the fans are still at normal, then it appears iCue is the culprit.

But if the fans are running at max, then perhaps it is a hardware issue?

I will let you know the answer to this riddle in about 8 hours  😁

Thank you again for your help, it is much appreciated!

[Cool Barn]

Okay, just got home.

My computer is sounding very nice and quiet without iCue running.  Seems like it might be the software rather than hardware.

When I start iCue, initially the fan speeds stay the same (ie - quiet).

However, not too long randomly afterwards, the fans ramp up to maximum even with the temperatures staying at completely normal levels.  This did not happen with iCue 4.  

As you can see by my custom fan profile, the fans should now be running very quietly at 30% based on the CPU temperature.

But they're not - it's loud in here!  Noticeably louder than it ever has been for the past two years while running this setup.  This only started in the last couple of days after "upgrading" to iCue 5.

Any help or suggestions would be great, cheers.

[c-attack]

I am wondering if the root cause is the inability to accurately track the CPU temp.  This was an issue on some of the older AIOs and CPU temp is not the intended control variable, but it doesn't come up as much now.  The CPU is cooled conductively.  Everything else in the system is on the waste heat removal job.  So if I give put a small air cooler, a 360mm AIO, and a custom cooling system the size of a refrigerator on your CPU and run Stress Test X, they will all come back with the exact same CPU temp -- at least for a few seconds.  What differentiates most cooling methods from each other is their ability to move the heat elsewhere over time.  1 min in the air cooler is still climbing in CPU temp, the 360mm AIO has gone up 2-3C, and the oversized custom set-up is still exactly the same as the first second of the test.  The little air cooler is conducting in more heat than it can expel, the 360mm is just slighting positive on watts in vs watts out, and the custom job is expelling every bit of heat as it's added in one pass through the system.  

 

So what you want to do with your water cooled system is control the fans based on the coolant temperature or liquid temp.  it's also called "H150i Elite Temp" in some menus.  Create a new custom curve with the yellow arrow.  Then go down to the "sensor" and change it to H150i or "liquid temp".  In the bottom right corner of the graph are those 4 shape tools.  The 2-4 are the quiet, balanced, extreme presets, but now you can see the control points.  Pick the Quiet one.  Change the fans over in the drop down.  The fans only need to spin up when more watts are added to the coolant, which in turn makes the H150i temp go up.  The relationship between CPU temp and Coolant temp is 1:1.  For each +1C in coolant temp, CPU temp goes up 1C.  Same thing for -1C and -1C.  When your CPU spikes to 80C for a second, it's the metal cold plate that keeps it from getting too hot.  But as far as watts go, it barely does more than tickle a few water molecules.  It takes sustained power to raise the liquid temp and adversely affect the CPU.  You can move these points around and there is nothing sacred about 33C=50% fan speed or anything like that.  If the 31C in the picture above is your normal baseline for this time of year, set the bottom of the curve to 31C and a quiet fan speed.  Most users will see a peak of around +10C above that when gaming.  You set that for the fastest speed you are willing to tolerate.  For most users with 120s, that's likely between 1200-1500 rpm. That's plenty to cool a 300W on a CPU, something that's not easy to create naturally.  Most users see the +10C to coolant when gaming as a result of the GPU heating up the interior of the case.  The AIO cannot reduce coolant temp below the internal case temperature.  

 

The coolant temp sensor is in the pump head and the controller can read it at all times, with or without the software running.  This includes boot and shutdown or simply if you quit CUE.  If you link the fans to CPU temp, the controller can't get that data without the software.  The top part of this thread was specifically about an older AIO model "Platinum" that had a specific issue with it's internal controller.  You should not need to flash the firmware on the pump or Commander Core and I would discourage you from doing that unless there is a genuine lock-up, non-responsive kind of issue.  Try the above and see if the fans behave.  If not, then there may be a larger issue and we'll go from there.  

[Cool Barn]

Thank you again C-Attack, I will give that a try when I get home this afternoon.

For your information, I rolled back to iCue 4 last night to see how that would go.

So far so good - iCue 4 is running quietly; it is only iCue 5 that displays this issue.

Are there any security issues in running older iCue software? Or are they purely functional and cosmetic differences?

Because if there are no risks running iCue 4, I might as well stick with it, and wait until next year to see if iCue 6 is less broken perhaps?

[c-attack]

8 hours ago, Cool Barn said:

there any security issues in running older iCue software? Or are they purely functional and cosmetic differences?

Not at this time, but cue 4 won’t get more support unless there is a serious security issue. The big change from CUE 4->5 is the modular installment nature. It detects the hardware connected, then only downloads those bits. Same UI and general abilities for now, so unless you have a newly released product like the DarkStar, Nightsword, or QX fans that came out after CUE 4 stopped, you’ll be fine. 
 

Not sure why CUE 5 is having trouble with fan control. Nothing revolutionary there, but that’s why I was wondering about the cpu temp vs coolant temp. There have been some metrics issues about data coming from the OS and I was wondering if there was a problem with the data coming to CUE or how CUE was interpreting that CPU temp data.