H100i v2 and system troubleshooting

Hi there, system info will be at the bottom, sorry for wall of text!

 

I'm worried that maybe there's a problem with my pump, or that the pump isn't getting enough power, or maybe that there is just some other incompatibility between the cooler and my system. I've had this one for almost two years now and haven't had any problems that I was aware of, until about this summer. Weather started getting pretty hot, fans started getting pretty loud. It seemed like the cpu temperatures were okay but the cooler temperature was pretty high, usually climbing from mid 30s to 40 during trivial load, and up to 45 during heavy load (could never quite figure out whether these temps were that bad or not because i guess it is based a lot on ambient room temp?). At this point it sounded like this could just be a result of increased ambient temps but I started to try and double check configurations, fan curves, power connections, etc. to see if I could mitigate it and bring the sound down on the fans. For a while I just switched to performance mode on the fans and pump and that seemed to help with the cooler temp, but obviously not fan noise. I also started to worry that maybe I didn't mount very well (did I use too much paste? is there too much tension on the hoses? did I use the right screws on the backplate?).

 

Since then, I've been more closely monitoring the system temperatures and started seeing occasional weird stuff, and the fan noise was really starting to get to me, so I kept poking around my system and researching.

 

That lead to about a month ago, I re-seated with new paste (looked into the backplate issue which seems to be one of some contention, i ended up leaving installed as instructed with no addition of washers or anything), re-oriented the pump to try and alleviate some of the tension in the hoses, replaced the fans with new ML120s, and again it seemed to result in improved cooler temps, less irregularities.

 

Today I noticed my temps were a little high (cpu 60s, cooler 40) with fairly low loads, even though ambient temp is probably the coldest its been in a while, and at this point I'm lost. I restarted into uefi to look at fan settings for the millionth time (cpu fan set to Full Speed, which seems like the best option but TBH I'm not sure) and noticed that it was reading my cpu temp as 100, I booted and opened up Link and saw that indeed the cpu temps were in the high 90s and that my cooler temp was almost 55. meanwhile the temperature in the room is maybe 21 or 22 I think. At the time of writing this, maybe 40 minutes later, cpu temps are back down to 30s and cooler temp down to 28.

 

My main line of thinking at this point is still along the lines of "Am I missing some critical support setting in the uefi that is sporadically affecting power to the cooler," or "Maybe this is still a problem with the mounting, maybe there's still too much tension and the backplate really is just loose," or "maybe this pump is just two years old and is just starting to malfunction," and in any case I'm not sure what to do.

 

Current system info:

case: Corsair Carbide Air 240

psu: Corsair CS750M I think

mainboard: ASRock Z170M Extreme4

cpu: i7 6700k 4ghz no overclock

cpu vCore: not sure how to determine the max but highest I saw now was 1.23v

memory: g.skill ripjaws 16gb (2x8gb) ddr4

gpu: GTX 970

 

case air flow configuration: radiator is in front with the ML120s both as intake, 1 AF120 exhaust on top

edit: Corsair Link configuration: Cooler Fan is set to Performance mode, Group is set to the cooler. Pump is set to Performance

I'm also going to try and upload a capture of Link right now because there's another thing that's always bothered me; it shows one fan under the cooler and two under the mainboard, but shouldn't it be the other way around?

 

Thanks for taking a look, I've waited a long time before posting because I really wanted to use this as a learning experience since this is my first water cooler, but at this point I feel like I understand it less than ever. Maybe I should just stick to air coolers :/ Let me know if there's any info I'm missing

OK. A couple of things first.

 

The loose backplate is as designed. No worries there and there really isn't an reason to debate it - though it does bother some people's OCD.

 

CPU Fan Speed should be on full speed / 100% - look into the Liquid Cooler FAQ for details. That's typically the first thing that I ask in cases like this but you're good there.

 

Link is showing correctly - it only shows one fan for this cooler because both fans are controlled as a single unit. The fan control feed is really a splitter, not two independent fans.

 

Which leaves us to bad news ... it sounds like you have blockage or failure. It started out earlier this summer but didn't get bad until now. Open up a support ticket and start the RMA process. Make sure that you have your receipt. Sorry about that. If it's any consolation, though, it sounds like you did a good job troubleshooting and investigating and have the cooler set up properly.

Oof Ouch Owie, thanks for the quick response, I'll look into RMAing it. It worked great for a while, but I think I might go back to air coolers from now on :(

 

Just out of curiousity, if the way Link is displaying the fans is correct - what are the two fans on the mainboard? I only have the one AF120 connected to a chassis connector... GPU fan? Duplicate of one of cpu? Thanks again.

Link and iCUE love to duplicate and erroneous “temperature” readings in the motherboard section are a long running issue. Nothing in your case is 0C, 17C, or 127C. I am afraid I concur with the above and you have an internal flow problem or blockage. You need to replace the cooler.