NZXT Kraken X72 pump noise

Squirrel724 · January 23, 2020

Twice this week I have booted my PC up to find the pump on my Kraken X72 making quite the racket. It sounds like a hard drive under a heavy load but quite a bit louder. That's the only way I can describe it, like a hard drive clicking. It's not the gurgling you get when there is air in the pump and tilting the system doesn't change the sound. After letting the system run for about 15 minutes the sound goes away and the pump sounds like normal. Thermals are exactly how they have always been with this cooler. As mentioned this has only happened twice so far, first on Monday and then again today. Cooler was bought brand new in mid December 2019 and the radiator is installed vertically in the front of my case.

Is this OK behavior or should I be starting the RMA process for this cooler? I'm jumpy because this is my first time with a liquid cooler and its not a cheap CPU that is being cooled. I don't want to have to discover first hand what NZXT's policies and procedures are in regards to CPUs damaged by a failing cooler. The noise also isn't consistent enough that I could be confident that NZXT would be able to reproduce it if I do send it in for RMA.

Looking for advice. Is this a quirk of AIO watercooling and perfectly fine or a sign of a failing pump? Is NZXT's service good enough that they would swap it even if they weren't able to reproduce the noise right away? Should I just run it until the noise is constant or worse the pump dies, killing my 3900x and hope that NZXT replaces both of them?

Statik · January 23, 2020

If the pump dies I don't think you'll fry your CPU. It'll most likely just have a thermal shutdown. If you really don't like the noise you can RMA it, or you can just roll with it.