Having Concerns with H150i Elite Capellix XT

[DoubleKnees]

I recently built a computer, and I purchased a H150i Elite, i'm new to liquid cooling but i noticed that my liquid coolant temp is reading at 30 degrees C. is this normal or should I be concerned? I hadn't played any games. this is just standard web browsing. I have an I9-14900k with a Gigabyte 4090 graphics card.

One thing that does happen when booting up is that i get an CPU fan error message when i boot up my computer, so I change that to ignore. 

 

Thanks for any help you guys can provide. 

[DoubleKnees]

I also should mention that i plugged the CPU Fan cable into the AIO_Pump area because the CPU_Fan connection is 4 pin, instead of the three pin that is with the unit

[DevBiker]

Those coolant temps look fine (though it does depend on ambient). What are you expecting to see?

A few details about the ambient temp and the installation would help. One thing to watch out for is exhausting GPU heat through the radiator or blocking airflow with glass. But since we don't know how you have it installed, it's impossible to provide any more detail.

You should plug the CPU fan cable into the CPU Fan port, as indicated in the manual. It's not necessary for the pump to operate but it does provide a tach signal to the motherboard so you don't get a CPU Fan speed warning. Which explains exactly why you got that warning.

[DoubleKnees]

10 hours ago, DevBiker said:

Those coolant temps look fine (though it does depend on ambient). What are you expecting to see?

A few details about the ambient temp and the installation would help. One thing to watch out for is exhausting GPU heat through the radiator or blocking airflow with glass. But since we don't know how you have it installed, it's impossible to provide any more detail.

You should plug the CPU fan cable into the CPU Fan port, as indicated in the manual. It's not necessary for the pump to operate but it does provide a tach signal to the motherboard so you don't get a CPU Fan speed warning. Which explains exactly why you got that warning.

It's my first time using a water-cooling system before so when I looked at the program I saw that the temperature color was orange while everything else was blue so I didn't know if something was wrong. I have a 5000D RGB Airflow case so I have the fans/radiator mounted to the top part of the case. My 4090 is set up horizontal. 

Also as far as CPU fan cable on my mother board (ASUS - ROG STRIX Z790-E) has four pins. the connector on the H150i Elite is for three pin, should i still plug it in there. i saw a few YT videos saying to plug it in the  AIO_Pump area 

[DevBiker]

2 hours ago, DoubleKnees said:

It's my first time using a water-cooling system before so when I looked at the program I saw that the temperature color was orange while everything else was blue so I didn't know if something was wrong. I have a 5000D RGB Airflow case so I have the fans/radiator mounted to the top part of the case. My 4090 is set up horizontal. 

You can change the scale. Again, without knowing your ambient, it's hard to say - the ambient (room) temperature is going to be your baseline as that is the lowest possible temperature for the coolant. If your room temp is, say, 15C, that's not good. If its, say, 25C, its just fine and about the best you'll get while running.

There are a couple of methods for installing the cooler. The best - from a cooling perspective - is for it to draw air in directly from the outside over the radiator (intake). However, the most common installation for a top-mounted radiator is to have it as exhaust. This isn't a bad thing but you do need to keep in mind that you'll have some element of internal waste heat going through the radiator. You can counter that with the intake/airflow fans in the case. You can set those to be controlled by the coolant temp or - even better - use the temp sensor in the exhaust flow of the rear/exhaust fan and base their speeds on the case's internal temperature.

From there, you can adjust fan curves based on your personal preference for noise vs cooling. Higher fan speeds will cool better ... and also be louder. The default "Quiet" curve, as the name implies, leans more to quiet and will let the coolant get warmer than, say, Balanced or Extreme/Performance before it kicks up fan speeds. But you can create your own curves that are more attuned to your preferences and, more importantly, your environment.

2 hours ago, DoubleKnees said:

her board (ASUS - ROG STRIX Z790-E) has four pins. the connector on the H150i Elite is for three pin, should i still plug it in there. i saw a few YT videos saying to plug it in the  AIO_Pump area 

The AIO Pump header is simply a standard header set to 100%. It has absolutely no meaning outside being marketing fluff ... and most of them are 4 pin. But 3-pin and 4-pin fan headers are completely compatible with each other. Is it required to be on the CPU header? Only if you want to eliminate that warning. That warning can also serve as an early warning for pump failure.

[LeDoyen]

often the AIO pump header has a higher amp rating, like 3A instead of 1 on the usual fan headers.

For the H150i, it's useless since the AIO is not powered by a fan header. The 3 pin cable is only here for the mobo fan warning. So you either connect it to CPU fan to inhibit that alarm, or disable the CPU fan alarm in bios. The cable is the user friendly solution.

[c-attack]

21 hours ago, DoubleKnees said:

I saw that the temperature color was orange while everything else was blue

That is the default (and unchangeable) UI colors.  Fans blue, all temp orange, voltages are purple.  It does not change along a gradient like you can do with the case lighting, although that's not a bad idea or least allowing a specific temp trigger to turn red, etc.

 

Coolant temperature or specifically change in coolant temperature is a measure of how much heat is in the cooling system.  The CPU is cooled conductively by the metal block and that's how all CPU cooling methods work.  It's what they do with the waste heat after that differentiates one type from another.  Water cooling systems use the liquid as a transport to move the heat from the CPU block heat pick up to the radiator, where the fans then try to blow the heat off somewhere else.  Then the water goes back around for another pick up and repeats endlessly.  However, you can't blow off all the heat in a single pass, so as the CPU wattage exceeds the radiator's ability to blow it off, the liquid temperature will go up.  +1C to liquid temp = +1C to CPU temp and the same for temp reduction at -1 and -1.  Because heat flows both ways across the CPU block, the liquid temp is the minimum possible CPU with zero volts.  You'll see your true idle CPU temps just a bit above the coolant temp since they rarely shutdown completely.  If you run a fixed load CPU stress test like CPU-Z and your CPU temp holds at 75C when the coolant is 30C, then if the coolant is 35C, then your end CPU temp will be 85C.  You can watch this happen when testing with a fixed load and the coolant temp will go up +1C every 20-30 seconds and the CPU temps along with it.  

 

As mentioned above, your baseline coolant temp is heavily environment dependent.  Most users will have an idle coolant temp about 4-7C above their room temp, but things like case design (glass vs open), dust filters, and placement within your room will factor in too.  Park your PC under the desk in the corner and all your waste heat has nowhere to go.  The PC will steadily increase in temp as long as it is running.  Assuming you have your Intel 253W power limit in place (you should), you likely will see a +6C rise in coolant temp when running a max load CPU stress test over 10 minutes.  Where you are more likely to see your highest coolant temp is when gaming.  The 4090 will create a lot of local heat and some of it will passthrough the radiator.  At a minimum, it heats the case and everything in up.  Most users will see a +10C rise in coolant temp when gaming because of the environment change.

 

The preset fan curves can't account for all the unique variables and so nearly everyone is better off using their own custom curve.  Click on the yellow + to create a new one.  A graph will appear below.  Click on any of the shape tools in the lower right corner of the graph.  Those are visible copies of the presets and a good place to start.  The methodology is fairly simple and you don't need to overanalyze.  Small changes in fan speed do not have a significant impact on CPU temp, but they have noticeable tonal changes for noise.  Right now it looks like your baseline temp is 30C.  Set the first point to 30C and a quiet fan speed that will never bother you when quietly working.  That's likely something like 500-700 rpm.  Make the next point the same fan speed and a temp of 33C or so.  This creates a flat spot for idle so the fans don't speed up because it's 1C warmer in your room on the day.  For the third point you set it to the highest coolant temp you normally see and that is likely when the GPU is fully engaged.  Assuming the common +10C, we'll say 40C.  Set the fan speed to a moderate but tolerable level.  On a 360mm, 1100-1300 rpm is likely all you need but ultimately this is up to you.  If you use 1000 rpm and it's 1-2C warmer, then you've only lost 1-2C on CPU temp.  The rest of the points can be stashed at 50-60C liquid temp and 100% fan speed.  This is beyond the range you should ever reach.  60C is the device limit, but anytime you exceed 50C liquid temp, you need to find out why.  It should not happen unless every single possible factor goes against you.