H80i GT fans start suddenly going full tilt!

A couple of times while gaming recently the fans on my H80i GT have have just started ramping up to full speed from about 40% which is where they normally sit. I'm using a custom fan curve that is set to go no higher than 40% under any temp so I don't know what is going on.

What are you using as the control variable for fan speed? Anything except H80GT Temp (water temperature) is likely to have unexpected results.

 

What are your water temperatures when under load and at idle on the desktop?

What are you using as the control variable for fan speed? Anything except H80GT Temp (water temperature) is likely to have unexpected results.

 

What are your water temperatures when under load and at idle on the desktop?

 

Where do I check on that? Is it in CL4? I recall seeing it somewhere...

 

Idle is between 25-30° and load is usually between 35-40°

 

Something is triggering the fans off to full speed. I don't experience this when running in performance mode.

I see, when clicking on the fan profile in CL4 your actually configuring the H80i GT water temp sensor...

 

I'm using the quiet profile and it looks like it's set to anything higher than 40° (water temp) to go from 60% fans to 100%. This surely is my problem... I may have been mistaking the water temp for cpu temp in the fan profile. The question is, is 40° water temp a bit high?

Water temperature (H80i GT Temp) always starts with your room/case internal temperature as a basis. When the PC is off in a 23C room, the water temp is 23C. Most people run 4-6C over room temp at power on idle, case layout and cooler model dependent.

 

There is nothing magical about 40C. They had to pick something as the celing and that's it. It is likely based on a standard 20-23C room temp and represents a very definite amount of heat that must be applied to the system to raise the water temperature by that amount. However, if you are in a very warm room (or have a very warm case) you could start out with water temps in the mid 30's. This is very reachable in Summer time. 40C then represents a very small increase in water temp and a whole bunch of fan speed will not be able to cool the water any further than the mid-30 temp you started at. In short, most people need a hot weather custom fan curve (see here, #4). In Quiet mode, it should cap your fans at 1350-1400 rpm, regardless of water temp.

 

So is 40C high? Depends on your room temp. Also single frame coolers, particularly when in the rear slot, are always going to be a bit warmer when gaming or other mixed loads because of the GPU waste heat. This is another reason to make your own curve or set them to manual fixed speed you can tolerate.

Right so it must be by design that 40° is reaching the high end for these coolers... Anything much higher is probably not normal? Capping the fans in quiet mode is the opposite of what's happening for me, it seems (or I think) that if the water temp goes over 40° in quiet mode the fans are ramping up to full speed...

 

I don't quite understand your weather profiles as you state that for both the summer and winter profiles the fans don't need to go above 1500 rpm...

 

How do you translate the percentages in the fan curve editor into actual fan rpm?

I don't have an answer for the Quiet mode behavior and I am not using Link right now, so I can't try and replicate it. It should limit the fan speed. What does your Quiet "curve" look like? It may not work if set to anything other than H80i GT Temp group.

 

The 1500 rpm was for a 280mm radiator and that is actually more than you need for that size. You might need to run slightly faster on a 120mm H80iGT, but you don't need those speeds over 2000 RPM. The most you can every reduce the core temps is the same amount you can reduce the water temp. If your H80iGT temp was at 32C when your started gaming and it is 36C now, the most you can reduce CPU temps is 4C. So, unless you are overclocked to the edge and are running into your limit, an extra 500 rpm for a 2-3C reduction is a bad trade.

 

 

If your H80iGT is rear mounted, you will be affected by GPU waste heat and it is extremely easy to reach higher water temps. When I ran this configuration, I preferred to run a fixed RPM when gaming -- as much as I could stand. It had nothing to do with CPU temps and everything to do with the H80i being the sole exhaust point in the case. I needed fan speed for exhaust purposes. It also solved the problem of ramping fans and temperature swings. Check the Balanced/Performance 100% line, it may be 45C for the smaller coolers.

I can confirm that the slightest increase over 40° using the quiet profile is triggering the fans into full speed. The curve is stock as it can't be modified anyway...

 

I don't know. Perhaps there is a hidden parameter introduced later that causes this when it crosses that threshold. The curve is what I would expect (60%=~1400 rpm). Perhaps Red-Ray or another H80iGT user has some insight into this behavior. Other programs like AI Suite may hamper Link's abilities.

 

In the interim, you could try making a custom curve similar to the Quiet mode version and see if the cooler will play along.

That is actually what I was I going to mention next, Asus AI Suite as I have it. It has the Fan Xpert 3 feature which I can confirm has running processes (Asus motherboard fan control service) What I don't know is how this interacts with CL4's fan control and if one or the other overrides. I know the Asus uefi bios has fan control features as well but I'm not sure whether they are purely for fan control while in the bios or if they have some sort of overall system control as well.

Link does not play well with Asus Suite, especially Fan Xpert, use Task Manager to close the Asus software down and see if you still have problems. I use Fan Xpert to control my cooler fans and case fans, because Link won't run properly on my system.

Link does not play well with Asus Suite, especially Fan Xpert, use Task Manager to close the Asus software down and see if you still have problems. I use Fan Xpert to control my cooler fans and case fans, because Link won't run properly on my system.

 

Does that mean you use Fan Xpert for everything instead of Corsair Link? The only interference would be Fan Xpert trying to control the H80i fans as well as Corsair Link wouldn't it? I'm not even certain Fan Xpert is controlling my case fans but I think it is...

 

Will Corsair link fan control and profiles only be operable while Corsair Link is open with the CorsairLink4.Service running? I know that it will continue to run the pump speed at what you set it to even after closing the GUI and the service, but fan control I'm not sure about...

 

Is it possible to configure Fan Xpert to continue running the case fans but not have any cpu fan control?

 

I don't have the AI Suite GUI run at startup but all services are configured to run on startup.

I stopped the AsusFanControlService for AI Suite and ran some OCCT tests. I noted that when the pump is using the quiet mode setting the water temp rises very quickly to 40°. As soon as it goes over 40° the fans are still being triggered into full speed despite the fan curve being set to cap the fans at 60% - 40° and anything higher.

 

When using the performance pump mode I never reach 40°. Is it normal for the water temps to rise so quickly when using the quiet pump mode?

 

Why the fans are being 100% triggered is still a mystery...

Link doesn't detect my H110i GT for some reason, although it did in my previous case and with my previous motherboard, so I have connected the cooler fans to CPU Fan and CPU Opt Fan headers, the cooler to the water pump header and the case fans to the rest of the motherboard headers. I now use Fan Xpert to control all of the fans, My pump runs on quiet with a blue led, which is how it was set up in my previous installation (the one where Link worked)

 

The problem is that Link doesn't play nice with other software, so trying to run the case fans on Fn Xpert and the cooler on Link could cause a few problems. You could buy a Commander Mini and connect the case fans to that, which should allow you to control them from Link, but I don't know how much control you would have.

 

With Link not working it isn't a problem for me and anyway, I had problems with it when it did work, adding drives etc multiple times.

I made a custom fan profile today similar to the quiet profile except that I set the last dot on the graph to 41° instead of 40°. When the water temp went over 41° while playing a game the fans were triggered again to 100%. It seems this is happening no matter what profile is set...

 

If you have a look at my screen above of Corsair Link you can you see that I have additional temp and fan readings. I'm not sure why I have these, I don't have 10 fans!

When I open CL4 it briefly shows the normal amount of readings and then the additional ones.

 

I usually use HWMonitor while on the desktop but since I changed my account from the administrator to a standard account for my normal usage HWMonitor has also been opening with many additional sensors. HWMonitor requires admin permission to run from a standard account, whether this has something to do with the additional sensors and the CL4 fan issue I'm not sure...

 

I'm still using version 4.2.4.25. I suppose there is nothing to lose in seeing whether the issue persists in the latest version... I saw reports of some issues in the latest release, has it stabilized now?

What is the best way to do a *clean* install of Corsair Link? Just in case it's an awry setting that's causing this?