Positive, negative or equal Pressure with watercooling?

[Davehaslanded]

So here's the thing, I have a Watercooled Corsair 600t with Xfire 290s and an OC Fx8350 all running at 4K. I currently have approximately equal air pressure (Front [with rad] & Rear intake/Top dual fans [with rad] exhaust). 
The problem is, as many of you may know, getting air to passively cooled components like RAM and Motherboard is not easy and Asus Ai Suite keeps throwing up warnings about heat after intense gaming.

 

So what would you guys advise? Switch the rear to exhaust and hope that it chucks out the build up of hot air inside, or flip the top fans and push the cool air from above. It doesn't help that with intense gaming, my room hits 30°c! Seriously, i live in Britain and we are in winter here! I'm boiling lol. 

[Paul_VB]

IF temps are really that bad, get some spot fans to cool stuff. also, positive pressure should be better than negative/neutral.

[connorpiper]

Positive is much better for dust prevention. But if worse comes to worse, exhaust will keep your computer running.

 

Always positive is usually the rule.

[Davehaslanded]

Do you guys reckon putting a second 200mm fan on the front rad will help airflow and cool the motherboard?

[warmmilk]

since its just the one fan, try flipping the rear fan to run exhaust and see if that solves your problem.  its a lot easier than flipping the top fans on your rad.  I think that rear fan blowing in is messing with the airflow of the case and your getting stagnant air around your passive cooled components 

 

my own unscientific testing, keeping an eye on water temps, I see the best temps closest to neutral. 

[Faceman]

No two cases, no two rooms, and no airflow is the same.  I would just start mixing and matching airflow until you find something that works.  Can also try ghetto rigging fans over the motherboard VRMs and RAM, most importantly the VRMs.

 

P.S. loving the build and the pic-stitch

[Davehaslanded]

No two cases, no two rooms, and no airflow is the same. I would just start mixing and matching airflow until you find something that works. Can also try ghetto rigging fans over the motherboard VRMs and RAM, most importantly the VRMs.

P.S. loving the build and the pic-stitch

Thanks for the compliment, but I really don't want to ghetto mod the rig. I've spent too much time and money making it look the way I like. Call it vanity, but I don't like the idea of spending time and money painting a Mona Lisa, only to stick Googly eyes on it. (Although that does sound fun now lol) i'm thinking that maybe if I set the rear fan to exhaust and add another 200mm fan intake to the front radiator making it to push pull, it may improve overall airflow. The 200 mm radiator I have does not allow a lot of airflow to come through, even at high rpm.

[Faceman]

Thanks for the compliment, but I really don't want to ghetto mod the rig. I've spent too much time and money making it look the way I like. Call it vanity, but I don't like the idea of spending time and money painting a Mona Lisa, only to stick Googly eyes on it. (Although that does sound fun now lol) i'm thinking that maybe if I set the rear fan to exhaust and add another 200mm fan intake to the front radiator making it to push pull, it may improve overall airflow. The 200 mm radiator I have does not allow a lot of airflow to come through, even at high rpm.

But then the eyes will follow you around the room!haha, kidding aside. What warning messages are you getting from your motherboard? I'm guessing VRM temps? Try doing everything aside from ghetto rigging the machine and see if you can improve temps some other way.

[Davehaslanded]

Yes it's mainly Vrms, RAM and USB socket oddly? Asus Ai suite gets real moany after a few games. lol. I'm going to try switching the rear fan to exhaust. Then in the new year, I might buy a second 200mm fan just to improve overall case airflow.

[Benji_w]

Do you guys reckon putting a second 200mm fan on the front rad will help airflow and cool the motherboard?

No, looking at that mesh, it looks like what is on the roof of my 500R and since I moved to water, I've never once had that cover on the top because it chokes my rad as intake and bounces all the hot air back into the case as exhaust.

 

Yes it's mainly Vrms, RAM and USB socket oddly? Asus Ai suite gets real moany after a few games. lol. I'm going to try switching the rear fan to exhaust. Then in the new year, I might buy a second 200mm fan just to improve overall case airflow.

 

Stop using Ai suite, it's useless, it gave me (and others that pointed me to other software) completely false information when I got this board if you have the EC sensors enabled while gaming it will also cause issues too with monitoring software keeping an eye on things, it rendered CSGO unplayable for me. I use HWinfo64 to keep tabs on my temps, I suggest you use this as this has been the most stable (and I've tried a good damn few) out of all the monitoring softwares about.

 

Can I ask what your clocks are, what your voltages are etc because I struggle to keep my cpu cool with a single 120 and a 240mm setup so having what looks like 2 gpus too would just kill my rig lol.

[Benji_w]

Also, the VRM on these boards are pretty hot too and the heat they produce will soak into the CPU socket in turn heating it up. To reduce these temps, the fellas and myself in the sabretooth 990FX club on Overclock.net use stock 80mm or 120mm fans on both the VRM heatsink and the back of the CPU socket to reduce the heat.

 

As you say your vanity is stopping you from strapping fans to things, you might want to head over to this thread and take note of how much difference in temps he gets.

[Davehaslanded]

I only have mine clocked to 4.5ghz. I could get 4.7ghz stable, but not with C-states activated, and for the extra benefit i got in gaming from 200mhz, id rather keep the C-states on and reduce the amount my room heats up when the PC runs at idle. As i said, i don't want to go strapping fans onto the motherboard or anywhere in view of the side window. I think the problem really is the lack of airflow due to the restriction of the 200mm intake fan. Even with the fan controller up full, its hard to feel any airflow on your hand from any more than 2 inches away. I think a 2nd 200mm fan may be warranted.

[Ghost]

I would suggest you do a top and rear intake with the front fan as an exhaust. Unconventional but no real downside to doing so. Just put in some fan filters at the intakes.

[Benji_w]

I only have mine clocked to 4.5ghz. I could get 4.7ghz stable, but not with C-states activated, and for the extra benefit i got in gaming from 200mhz, id rather keep the C-states on and reduce the amount my room heats up when the PC runs at idle. As i said, i don't want to go strapping fans onto the motherboard or anywhere in view of the side window. I think the problem really is the lack of airflow due to the restriction of the 200mm intake fan. Even with the fan controller up full, its hard to feel any airflow on your hand from any more than 2 inches away. I think a 2nd 200mm fan may be warranted.

 

I have C states on but it doesn't seem to work at 4.9 lol, you could try another fan, but given what I know about that mesh on that ERA of cases, you might need to go for something more pressure optimised in push/pull. Again I can't stress to you enough how inaccurate Ai suite is and if you're basing your temps off that you're simply being mislead. 

 

As for your room heating up, with your 4.5ghz overclock you shouldn't need more than stock voltage i believe (may be wrong, didn't spend any time at that OC as I wanted 5ghz) possibly less, so it won't be generating that much heat however your dual cards will and given you have a fairly small amount of rad space I'd say that is your limiting factor combined with your case choking your intakes, if one of your rads is intake your VRM will be heating up a lot too.

 

If it was me I'd be getting some replacement mesh, ripping out the stuff causing half your problem and replacing it with modders mesh or whatever you can find that looks good and functions. Flip the rear to be an intake, exhaust both rads should help given my experience. Hope that helps if not you can give me a slap for wasting your time. :lol:  

[Benji_w]

I would suggest you do a top and rear intake with the front fan as an exhaust. Unconventional but no real downside to doing so. Just put in some fan filters at the intakes.

 

Ah I misread his config! Flip the rear to exhaust should sort you! 

[Davehaslanded]

After peaking inside my PC, i've switched the rear to exhaust but i also realised why i never did push pull on the front 200mm radiator in the first place. Phobya released a V2 version of the rad without actually publicizing the fact. When i bought it, it didn't fit the 600t (due to a thicker end chamber), so i had to dremel new screw holes lower down in the case. On top of this, the 200mm fan connects via a 'fan adapter plate', of which only one is supplied, and despite my frantic Google attempts, it appears impossible to buy a second on its own. Grr!

[Benji_w]

Plate of aluminium and make your own mate, less messing around and a thin piece of rubber/silicone as a fan gasket. 

[Davehaslanded]

Plate of aluminium and make your own mate, less messing around and a thin piece of rubber/silicone as a fan gasket. 

Its a lot of work, i might look for an alternative. Maybe i'll place a 120mm just next to the radiator, pushing air into the case.

[Purplehazeffc]

With my Sabertooth board I got Corsair ram cooling kit & put that up against the vrm heatsink. Lowered temps 15c.

I ran my FX8350 at 5.0ghz at 1.5v stable. No errors at all with ai suite.

[Benji_w]

With my Sabertooth board I got Corsair ram cooling kit & put that up against the vrm heatsink. Lowered temps 15c.

I ran my FX8350 at 5.0ghz at 1.5v stable. No errors at all with ai suite.

Ai suite? That app is a load of crap, please don't use it, even in the sabretooth club it isn't recommended at all.

[Benji_w]

Its a lot of work, i might look for an alternative. Maybe i'll place a 120mm just next to the radiator, pushing air into the case.

 

It isn't at all tbh, Thin piece of square ally, pop your existing bracket on top, use a sharpie and mark it all up, drill holes zip zip, then get a saw etc to cut out the inside. Few hours work if you're not handy with tools, less than an hour sans paint for someone like me with a good knowledge of tools.