Loud Pump Fan Nautilus 500

[Ziggs]

First off let me say that the cooling of this thing is absolutely incredible! Under full load i was hitting bout 65C and now i can't seem to get over 35C. Only problem that i seem to have is the loud humming coming from the Unit itself. I've tried rocking it back and forth and the only way that it stops is if i leave it on the side with the tubes and reservoir opening... but not sure how safe that is so I dont leave it there. Ive also noticed that when my computer is under load it is quiet as a whisper and stops humming? but when i stop running something it starts the loud annoying humming again.. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[RAM GUY]

That sounds like there is still some Air trapped in the unit, please make sure the cap is on and the tank is full and then try slowly rocking it side to side 90 Deg. And then back to Front if the noise change then for sure it's just air.

[PeterH]

I've hooked up my Nautilus 6 days ago. Initially I found that the pump was a little loud when cold, but got quieter as the water warmed up. The computer typically runs around 16 hour a day. I have the original waterblock on the cpu, a swifttech waterblock on the northbridge and a DangerDen waterblock on the 8800 GTS video card, so the load is moderate. It doesn't really get particularly warm though, I am quite pleased with the cooling if not with the vibration generated in the case! The nautilus is not even sitting on the computer, but on the floor next to it.

Yesterday things went awkward - something started to rattle after the comp was running for a while. I first thought that something in the computer itself was vibrating, but when I investigated I found that it was in fact the Nautilus doing the rattling, internally.

Today I am getting it again - about 2-3 hours after turning the computer on the Nautilus started to rattle. It's not steady, it phases in and out all the time, and it's a most disconcerting noise to have coming from under the desk.

 

Is there any way for me to open the unit and check what, if anything, has come adrift? I naturally don't want to void the warranty, but this might just be a case of poking a bit of foam into a gap ...

 

thanks, -Peter

[boogieman]

The nautilus is not even sitting on the computer, but on the floor next to it.

 

As I understand it the N500 must be above the devices being cooled. Ie, on top of your case.

[PeterH]

... so I posted here, hoping to get some reply, and after I didn't get one I used one of Ram Guy's links to mail to the 'I think I may have a faulty part' address.

I am still waiting to hear from them as well.

In the meantime I am subjected to variable noises, sometimes the pump is quiet, sometimes it sounds like it's straining. Sometimes the Nautilus rattles, then again it doesn't. Basically I am sitting here with this unit, getting the hell irritated by the noise, expecting failure any time now. Putting the unit on its right side worked for a couple of days, then the rattle started up again. Elevation makes no difference whatsoever either way.

The fact that "customer support" has so far failed to react to my queries in any way does not make me happy. One thing is sure, I was happy to give you guys my money because I thought you have a really good reputation - but I won't be so enthusiastic ever again: not because something failed, but because of the continuing silence. Very, very bad impression guys.

 

:mad: -Peter

[csplayer089]

why dont you call them instead of waiting for responses on a forum. they are very friendly i have called them 3 times and always get helped. never had to wait/never put on hold

[RAM GUY]

Peter that sounds like you may have some air trapped in the pump, did you try rocking the unit side to side when its on?

And we can try replacing the unit that's no problem, but 99% of the time its just air from what you have described. Our number is 800-205-7657 if you want to call us.

[csplayer089]

if you have pockets of air that are circulating throughout the system, then open the cap on the reservoir and let the system run. this should allow all air to escape. let the system run for several hours or even overnight.

[PeterH]

Right, well thanks for the response first up :-)

 

I very very much doubt that I have air trapped in the pump. I have done the tilting and shaking bit, left to right, front to back numerous times, I have also reopened the reservoir and kept topping it up until there was simply no room for any more fluid, tilting and tipping the unit until every last bubble of air was expelled. There are no air bubbles visible in the flow.

I've just rebooted the comp and right now the Nautilus sounds like a miniature air raid siren. That's the pump when it's cold. I know that within half an hour that noise will probably subside. 2 hours down the track it will probably start to rattle.

 

Unfortunately I don't live in the US, I live in New Zealand. I've had to cut into the hoses on the waterblock to daisy chain the other waterblocks I am using, and I am hesitant to try to pull the whole setup to bits as you can probably imagine. Really, the best thing would be to get another Nautilus without the trappings and try and see if that behaves better.

 

Actually, I was wrong, the first signs of rattle are starting up already. It's been 15 minutes since boot-up. Things are getting worse ...

 

... I'm going to call my retailer and see what they can wrangle for me in terms of a replacement unit.

 

As I was saying before, please try to tell me quick: do I void my warranty if I open the Nautilus and see if I can rectify matters myself? I am quite prepared to do that, I've serviced electronic equipment for nigh on 40 years and computers for 20, but I want to have a 'go ahead' before blowing my warranty by opening the case.

 

cheers, -Peter

[RAM GUY]

Let's get them or it replaced. Please follow the link in my signature “I think I have a bad part! Or *New* Tech Support Express” and we will be happy to replace them or it, please note that you are posting from the forum!

[PeterH]

Hi again, I received my replacement Nautilus in the mail today and have been running it it for the last 8 hours or so. Definitely NO rattling, and that is all good. I am cautious, so far, cause the other one ran for 6 days before the rattle started. One thing I can report so far is that the slight yowling pump noise on the new unit is actually louder than on the old one, and does not diminish when the water warms up. Funnily enough, this unit appears to cool considerably better than the previous one, with cpu temperatures ~ 28 degrees C a.t.m.

 

The nature of the noise, however, makes me think that maybe the pump is straining to push the water through the 3 waterblocks in my system. To reiterate: I've the Corsair block on the cpu (I left the computer's internals untouched and just exchanged the external unit when I got the replacement), next a swiftech northbridge block and lastly a DangerDen NV 88gts block on my 8800GTS video card.

Can you give me an opinion on that? I'll keep you posted w.r.t. further developments, should there be any change.

 

kind regards, -Peter :cool:

[stev]

Peter,

 

Sorry that I wasn't here to assist you on the first N500. From the sounds of it, the unit may have had a cavitation issue with one of the cold-blocks. A small number of HydroCools had a cavitiation issue a while back. http://www.houseofhelp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=120184&postcount=13

 

As for your "newer" N500, have you tried to reduce any flow restrictions with the cooling loop? The more 90 degree elbows and reduce flow fittings you have, the more the pump has to work harder against the flow resistance. This would go for any cooling loop and pump setup. Rather than 90 degree elbows or reducers, try to eliminate them in the cooling loop. One good way is to eliminate 90 degree elbows by using a flow bend clip. http://www.johnguest.com/part_spec.asp?s=PM26_D2

http://www.johnguest.com/gfx_series/PM26_D2.GIF

 

In some isnstances, I've seen people use "Y" fittings to replace the 90 degree elbow fittings. They basically epoxy the end that isn't used.

 

You may be able to find 90 degree curve fittings on some of the OC'er part sites too.

 

The less restrictive the cooling loop, the better the pump will flow with less noise. ;):

 

Stev

[PeterH]

Hi Stev, I don't have any really sharp corners in the flow, the arcs in the pipe from the cpu into the northbridge and from the Northbridge into the GPU block have a diameter of approx 3"-4" or ~80-100mm. No kinks in the pipe, I made sure of that. Have not used any elbows. Of course, each of the blocks themselves introduce some kind of 90 degree bend in the flow but there's little I can do about THAT.

Thanks for the reference to the other article, that more or less coincides with my feeling of what might be a line of investigation, other than selectively removing components. I may try to put a voltage regulator(trimmer) into a molex splitter and see if the noise gets less when I regulate it down to 10V or even 8V. The water certainly returns into the reservoir in a good strong jet at the moment.

 

thanks, -P.

 

P.S. I should maybe also mention that there is a noticeable vibration being set up in the computer itself. If I put my hand either on the Nautilus or on the computer I can feel it vibrating - the two units are separate and only connected by the water hoses and the power supply & control wire. My LiteOn DVD drive now refuses to read, which may be caused by this but could be coincidence. There were no vibrations before I installed the watercooling.

[RAM GUY]

Are the actual hoses vibrating? Take the Nautilus off the case for a moment and feel the hoses, you should feel the water flowing through them, but there should not be any actual vibration. Also you may want to double check your waterblock and make sure it is secure on the CPU.

[KaptCrunch]

best thing to do is isolate the bad block(s) or unit it self.

by removing block by block out of the loop, and hear when the noise goes or stays to the end of testing, means rad is clogged.

[RAM GUY]

Good Idea KaptCrunch, but that would be unlikely as the unit has been replaced as I remember. However, I would check the routing of your lines and make sure there is not a crimp in one of the hoses.

[PeterH]

Are the actual hoses vibrating? Take the Nautilus off the case for a moment and feel the hoses, you should feel the water flowing through them, but there should not be any actual vibration. Also you may want to double check your waterblock and make sure it is secure on the CPU.

 

Close to the Nautilus you can feel a strong vibration, and if/when the Nautilus touches my desk the whole desk vibrates too! But I also checked the hoses in mid-span between the Nautilus and the comp and there is no perceptible vibration there - I just tested by briefly disconnecting the power to the Nautilus a couple of times and the vibration in the comp did not change, so it's independent of the watercooling. Might be the new harddrive I put in. I was obviously barking up the wrong tree there! Doh!

 

So far still no rattling, and that's good news. KaptCrunch, I really can't imagine anything being clogged, as this is all brand new gear and I used distilled water and the supplied additive. There is a strong jet of water returned to the reservoir and not a laboured trickle.

 

I've ordered a jumpered 12V voltage regulator so I can reduce the voltage a bit, and I'll see how I go with that. It seems now that the new pump has run itself in a bit after 5 days; and it's getting quieter too as the water warms up. I definitely no longer feel the need to wear hearing protection or crank the stereo up to drown it out :D: But still far from 'whisper quiet' like it says on the box.

 

cheers, -Peter

[boogieman]

Are you talking about reducing the voltage to the pump? I hope not.

 

I would assume the pumps RPM is based on a full 12 volts, any reduction in volts could cause the pump to stall.

 

Maybe Corsair would disagree....

[RAM GUY]

I would not suggest adjusting the Voltage as that might make the pump run hot and over heat, not to mention VOID the warranty of the unit.

[PeterH]

by the fact that, exactly one week after hooking up my replacement Nautilus, it has started to develop the exact same vibration-rattle as the old one. About 2 hours after booting up today, for the first time it has started to rattle. Putting it on it's right side stops the rattle, for now. Could it be that this is a bad shipment that has gone to New Zealand? Because both of these units would be out of the same container.

 

Currently, I am NOT a happy customer <sigh>

 

I have, b.t.w., not done anything re. voltage. I expect I will get a bottle of 'anti-freeze' and start pulling my computer to bits and do testing with various waterblock configurations.

 

-Peter

[PeterH]

Rather than pulling all the waterblocks out of the computer individually with all the mess that was going to generate, my wife and I came up with the idea to just test the Nautilus by itself. No sooner said than done: drained the water out of the comp, used the two fittings to connect input and output of the Nautilus with a 2' loop of spare tubing, disconnected the mobo from the psu and fired the psu up with a jumper wire.

 

Surprise: the pump is just as loud with no load whatsoever.

 

When we move the Nautilus front to back, or side to side, the 'rattle' becomes very obvious, merely through moving the unit. It sounds almost as though someone was poking a toothpick into the fan.

 

I have taken photos of my setup, and taken a quicktime movie as a demo, although the sound pickup of my little Olympus digicam is not exactly soundstage quality.

 

If any of your engineers are interested I can send it - around 30Mb.

 

I've reassembled everything (so I can post this) and at the moment the Nautilus is happy enough just making pump noises ...

 

... I cannot help but get the impression that maybe we did receive a bad shipment. I have spoken to another guy on the nz.comp forum who says his Nautilus pump is so quiet he has to put his head on the box to hear it.

 

cheers, -Peter

[PeterH]

First the short version without commentary, recorded closer to the Nautilus with power-up, rocking forth and back to give a demo of the rattling noise and power-down.

 

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8453538735051903176>

 

The longer version with commentary and recorded with a helper:

 

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5124871775465302887>

 

because of the larger distance and the commentary the noise is not as clearly audible on this one. But I can hear it fairly clearly if I listen to the movie over headphones.

 

Sadly I don't have a decent microphone at the moment since the old one I had succumbed to humidity (e.g. rust in the coil) or I could post some better, sound only file.

 

cheers again, -Peter

[RAM GUY]

Peter that would suggest you might still have some Air inside the unit. Does the noise stop when its on its side?

[PeterH]

The noise stops for a little while when the Nautilus is on its side, then it comes back. Please consider that it had worked without the rattling noise for a week before the rattle started up - if it was caused by air then it should have been present all along, don't you agree?

 

I think I can safely say that we have done everything possible to get any air out of the system. 4 times so far that the system has been emptied and refilled, moved side to side, front to back repeatedly, topped up, moved again, stopped and started, and it's never made any change to the [performance].

If you have anything more to suggest we could do, please let me know what it is. I have had air bubbles coming out of the waterblocks and going through the pump a few times after the last testing run I did, and that sure makes a different noise from what we are/have been getting.

 

Two things: it seems to me that the pump used in these two units is maybe different to pumps used previously? I have researched for instance that the swiftech 350 generates noise levels of ~21-26 db whereas the swiftech 355 generates 31-34 db of noise (and some retailers explicitly state that this latter pump is NOT suitable where quiet operation is desired). I have only gotten a fleeting glimpse of the Nautilus pump on photos off review sites but it seems to be of similar make.

 

The pump by itself simply makes a hydraulic noise. I'd expect a hissing noise with cavitation or small air bubbles, and a knocking noise if the impeller were hitting larger air bubbles in the pump. Neither occurs. The pump is simply loud, and vibrates fairly strongly. As I have stated before - it seems to get quieter as the water warms. I understand this to be the inverse of what could be expected with cavitation which is said to get worse with warmer water.

 

As for the rattle, well something in there is simply not fixed properly I'd hazard a guess.

The fact that moving the Nautilus left to right, where you are acting on the angular momentum/inertia of pump and fan, makes it buzz like a piece of cardboard is held against a spinning fan, implies that components inside are shifting around in their fastenings and then vibrating against each other, maybe something even moves into the path of the fan blades (or the fan moves, respectively). And this loosening of componentry seems to have been brought on by 1 week of the vibrations of normal use. Twice.

 

If this one is going the way the first one went, I expect it will start to rattle and then buzz continuously even when standing on its right side, within 3-4 days.

 

I'd say this is no longer a matter of you trying to help me get this thing to go properly, it's a matter of me trying to supply as much information as possible to your engineers so this doesn't happen again. I'm pretty firmly convinced by now that we have received a 'problematic' production run here.

Looks like I may end up having no other option but to replace the Nautilus with components sourced elsewhere since my replacement was apparently the last one the distributor had in stock. Not something I look forward to in any way whatsoever, so if you can pull some magic solution out of a hat, I'll be only too glad to listen.

 

-P.

[RAM GUY]

I would be happy to test the unit for you personally, but there will be some noise from the pump, it has moving part's after all and there is no way to get rid of all of the noise. This product is in production and there is no issue that I am aware of, and there is no plan to make any changes to the design; we run several of these units in our lab and they do make a bit of noise but nothing compared to a high speed fan.