H100i RGB Platinum coolant temp reaching 60C while idle

My H100i RGB Platinum is raising concerns. While basically doing nothing, other than typing this out, the coolant temps are at 58°C. Pump is chugging along at the usual 2.3k RPM, fans are at 1.5k RPM.

 

CPU (R5 3600) is not hot at all, jumps up to low 40 every now and then. Room is the usual 25-26C.

 

Everything seems to be in order, except for the coolant temp. It used to be in the mid-high 30s.

 

I don't use iCUE, and the last time I did, I turned off all the LEDs, because I read that they trip up the temp sensor. The last change I did was to flip the front mounted radiator so the tubes are on the bottom and not top, but this was also a few weeks back.

 

 

 

Weirdly, as I was typing this out, and had the air conditioner on for a couple of minutes, the coolant temp suddenly dropped to 33°C. The room didn't get 20C cooler suddenly for this behavior to make sense. What can cause this issue?

 

A new cooler (NH-D15) is arriving tomorrow, so it's not terribly crucial that I do something about it (as long as it doesn't suddenly blow up), but I'd like to know what the issue is.

It likely means you have a partial blockage or flow problem in the cooler, which is the normal cause for high coolant temps above 50C. Whatever it is may have momentarily released allowing normal flow and tilting the case and taping the pump/hoses is a temporary way to try to keep going. However, if you have a legitimate physical substance blocking the flow, there’s nowhere for it to go. It will come around again and the problem re-emerges.

 

This is not a common issue for Platinum coolers and unfortunately the LED issue “false temp problem” has to be considered. If the coolant temp was truly 58C, you should have seen baseline CPU temps of approximately the same. If the idle CPU temps were in the normal 30-45C range, it may have been a sensor glitch.

 

What’s the current state? Is the coolant temp still high? There is a definite chance you got a large air bubble in the pump that worked its way over after the radiator reposition. Seems odd it would release in that moment and without case tipping/tapping. This is the one cause that you can solve. The other two likely require a hardware change and contact with Corsair support.

This morning it was fine, but it's happening again, HWInfro reports 57.3°C coolant temp.

 

Is it possible that there's something in the loop, like a bubble, but the CPU temps are fine?

 

My 3600 is idling at 35°C. I don't know how scientific it is, but I touched the radiator, tubes, and the CPU block, and it doesn't feel like it's trying to sweat out ~60°C anywhere. If there's blockage, and the liquid isn't getting circulated, I could understand that the radiator doesn't have anything to work with, but then shouldn't the rest of the assembly be hot somewhere?

Be slightly careful with HWiNFO and CUE used at the same time. Even with precautions, you can get polling errors and bad data out. The errors are usually obvious (200C+ temps, 12v rail reads 3.3v, etc). I don't know the normal predicted error range for the coolant sensor.

 

If you had a bubble sizable enough to keep fluid from passing through part of block fins, you might get high CPU temps, but the coolant temp would remain unchanged. It's not super heating the liquid as it passes through, but you aren't transferring heat properly where there is air instead of water. You get the elevated coolant when the liquid can't make regular trips around to the radiator to dump it out. Now it's like a pot of water on the stove, slow heating. That should be visible in the data, with a slow build up of coolant temperature over a period of time. It's not 32C one second and 57C the next. That is a sensor error.

 

If you have a true blockage, the coolant is hot (50C+) at the pump where it's measured, but the exhaust is cool because the warm coolant never makes it around. The coolant in the radiator is sitting there, barely moving, at room temp. The one thing that can't happen is you have a block coolant temp of 58C and a CPU temp 35C or anything lower than ~58C. Heat travels both ways across the cold plate, so in effect the warm gives the heat back to the CPU. The CPU temp would also climb in unison with the coolant, although this can be harder to see since it is so dynamic.

 

I think you are looking at a sensor error, but you want to rule out software conflict vs physical sensor problem. Unfortunately, the Platinum does have a history with this so it's possible. It's not something you see very often on other coolers. Quit HWiNFO completely, hopefully you are using the portable version and not the fully installed, see what CUE gives for H100I Platinum Temp (coolant temp). I would start a support ticket with Corsair now. I've lost track of the current status of this issue. Some get fixed with firmware updates, others need a physical swap.

Edited September 17, 2020 by c-attack

I'm experiencing an identical problem, with iCue reporting the processor running at ~28C, and the coolant temperatures approaching 50. Weird thing is that every now and then (~20-30minutes) the reported coolant temperature will drop down to mid 20C, stay there for a seconds or two, and then get back to to 50 over another five or so seconds.

I seem to have gotten the issue fixed - I updated the firmware in iCue to 1.01.15, that didn't help, but running the update a second time, choosing the force update option seems to have done the trick. It hasn't been acting up since.

 

Celebrated too early, it's back to 50C :/

Edited September 18, 2020 by zejjs

I seem to have gotten the issue fixed - I updated the firmware in iCue to 1.01.15, that didn't help, but running the update a second time, choosing the force update option seems to have done the trick. It hasn't been acting up since.

 

Celebrated too early, it's back to 50C :/

 

 

Contact Corsair Support. I don't know whether it is sensor glitch or physical, but both are going to require the same course of action.