Cooling/Airflow/Fan Placement Suggestions

[Ascend_Beyond]

After Steve from Gamers Nexus made his recent video about AIO radiator placement, I tried to change the placement of my Corsair H100i V2 and have had some trouble getting my computer to perform well in terms of noise or temperature levels. I'm not sure if I messed something up or if I just became more conscious of them when monitoring my temps (I'm not blaming Steve here).

Until recently, I've had the Corsair AIO cooling my i7-7700k at 4.8GHz in my Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 6 and a bunch of 140mm be quiet! Pure Wings 2 fans (some accidentally ordered as PWM and others not).

I recently added 2 more 120mm Aer P fans for push/pull on the radiator. 1x140mm top rear exhaust, 2x140mm top exhaust, 1x 140mm lower front intake, 4x120mm on the rad top front intake. All of the be quiet 140mm fans are plugged into motherboard headers (ASUS Maximus IX Hero), the Corsair fans are plugged into motherboard CPU fan headers, and the new NZXT fans are plugged into the split Y headers on the Corsair AIO pump itself.  So, everything but the NZXT fans are controlled by ASUS Fan Xpert.

 

My issue now is that my computer is much louder with all of these fans running as well as heating up my room very quickly. I'm questioning if I need to tweak my fan curves or if I have too many fans. I've also thought about buying a new case with better vents/airflow to toss everything in and scratch the itch of building something new (ex. Corsair Airflow 4000D). The Cooler Master case is pretty big and bulky and doesn't have the best vents (I at least have the panels popped to the "open" position and the front completely tilted open when gaming). Should I keep my radiator front mounted? Should I keep doing push/pull? How much would moving the rad to the top affect my GPU temps (currently maxing out on 67C under intense gaming)?

[emosun]

So just to establish this, theres nothing wrong with the machine at all except its just to loud for you now?

 

Id recommend putting it in a different room or wearing headphones as the machine doesnt have any problems

[Ascend_Beyond]

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

So just to establish this, theres nothing wrong with the machine at all except its just to loud for you now?

 

Id recommend putting it in a different room or wearing headphones as the machine doesnt have any problems

I do generally wear headphones at my desk, but I don't have anywhere else to move it to. It's still somewhat noticeably audible, more so than I would like. It's not performing how I would like either, and I would like some advice optimizing it, whether I need to move stuff around or replace/buy things to accomplish that affordably.

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, Ascend_Beyond said:

I do generally wear headphones at my desk, but I don't have anywhere else to move it to. It's still somewhat noticeably audible, more so than I would like. It's not performing how I would like either, and I would like some advice optimizing it, whether I need to move stuff around or replace/buy things to accomplish that affordably.

You didnt list anything in the op post that indicated the machine is overheating or even running hot

[Ascend_Beyond]

2 minutes ago, emosun said:

You didnt list anything in the op post that indicated the machine is overheating or even running hot

19 minutes ago, Ascend_Beyond said:

have had some trouble getting my computer to perform well in terms of noise or temperature levels

18 minutes ago, Ascend_Beyond said:

heating up my room very quickly.

Under more CPU-intensive gaming loads, my CPU would hit in the high 70C range or briefly touch 80C and become very loud before I added more fans to the rad, but now that I have potentially too many fans, it's louder. I'm not sure whether I really need this many fans for this system config.

[BiotechBen]

11 minutes ago, Ascend_Beyond said:

After Steve from Gamers Nexus made his recent video about AIO radiator placement, I tried to change the placement of my Corsair H100i V2 and have had some trouble getting my computer to perform well in terms of noise or temperature levels. I'm not sure if I messed something up or if I just became more conscious of them when monitoring my temps (I'm not blaming Steve here).

Until recently, I've had the Corsair AIO cooling my i7-7700k at 4.8GHz in my Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 6 and a bunch of 140mm be quiet! Pure Wings 2 fans (some accidentally ordered as PWM and others not).

I recently added 2 more 120mm Aer P fans for push/pull on the radiator. 1x140mm top rear exhaust, 2x140mm top exhaust, 1x 140mm lower front intake, 4x120mm on the rad top front intake. All of the be quiet 140mm fans are plugged into motherboard headers (ASUS Maximus IX Hero), the Corsair fans are plugged into motherboard CPU fan headers, and the new NZXT fans are plugged into the split Y headers on the Corsair AIO pump itself.  So, everything but the NZXT fans are controlled by ASUS Fan Xpert.

 

My issue now is that my computer is much louder with all of these fans running as well as heating up my room very quickly. I'm questioning if I need to tweak my fan curves or if I have too many fans. I've also thought about buying a new case with better vents/airflow to toss everything in and scratch the itch of building something new (ex. Corsair Airflow 4000D). The Cooler Master case is pretty big and bulky and doesn't have the best vents (I at least have the panels popped to the "open" position and the front completely tilted open when gaming). Should I keep my radiator front mounted? Should I keep doing push/pull? How much would moving the rad to the top affect my GPU temps (currently maxing out on 67C under intense gaming)?

I mean, you could alter the fan curves so that they kick on less often, and a better airflow case might help, also looking for quieter fans might be worth looking into as well. generally higher quality fans are quieter. So something like a noctua is generally going to be quieter than like a Jin-sui-han chinese knock-off no-name fan that you get in a cheap case. For noise: size matters. larger fans are generally going to be quieter as they have to spin less to move the same amount of air as a smaller one.

Also, @emosun, lay off the dude a little he's obviously not an expert when it comes to fluid dynamics, and I doubt you are either. I'm not saying I am either, but I'm trying to provide assistance or advise instead of being terse or chastising him/her. Some people really like quiet systems, and some people couldn't give two hoots about noise at all (I'm generally in that boat. I don't care about how loud a system is as long as it doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of the content I am ingesting. All I'm trying to say is that you could have been a little less harsh. I understand that tone is not conveyed well over text, but it is very easy to have your words come off in a way that was not intended.

[WoodenMarker]

Yes, take some time to set custom fan curves. Have you identified which fans are too noisy?

Unless the system is drawing more power, the system isn't heating up your room any more than usual. 

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

I understand that tone is not conveyed well over text,

But it didn't really keep you from jumping to the conclusion did it.

 

Just once id like to help an op. Once in a blue moon

[Ascend_Beyond]

3 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

I mean, you could alter the fan curves so that they kick on less often, and a better airflow case might help, also looking for quieter fans might be worth looking into as well. generally higher quality fans are quieter. So something like a noctua is generally going to be quieter than like a Jin-sui-han chinese knock-off no-name fan that you get in a cheap case. For noise: size matters. larger fans are generally going to be quieter as they have to spin less to move the same amount of air as a smaller one.

Also, @emosun, lay off the dude a little he's obviously not an expert when it comes to fluid dynamics, and I doubt you are either. I'm not saying I am either, but I'm trying to provide assistance or advise instead of being terse or chastising him/her. Some people really like quiet systems, and some people couldn't give two hoots about noise at all (I'm generally in that boat. I don't care about how loud a system is as long as it doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of the content I am ingesting. All I'm trying to say is that you could have been a little less harsh. I understand that tone is not conveyed well over text, but it is very easy to have your words come off in a way that was not intended.

I probably could have gone for better fans, that's fair. I did get pretty affordable ones. I'm not sure if I want to replace my AIO yet, and that might influence if I replace my case and what my options are for mounting something bigger than 240mm.

1 minute ago, WoodenMarker said:

Yes, take some time to set custom fan curves. Have you identified which fans are too noisy?

Unless the system is drawing more power, the system isn't heating up your room any more than usual. 

I can't tell exactly, but based on just looking at how fast they're spinning even from startup, I'm thinking it's the NZXT fans connected to the AIO pump that are just set to run pretty steadily at a high speed regardless. Even before adding to the rad, the Corsair fans were running fast, but not max speed at all times I don't think (with the Fan Xpert tuning curves). I usually just trusted whatever the program found for me and set things to start ramping up from a steady rate to when the CPU got closer to 50C, like 20-30% speed up until 40 something C. Some of the fans would auto tweak to just not running at all if temps were low enough.

[WoodenMarker]

5 minutes ago, Ascend_Beyond said:

I'm thinking it's the NZXT fans connected to the AIO pump that are just set to run pretty steadily at a high speed regardless.

Is the usb 2.0 header from the cooler connected to the motherboard and have you tried using Corsair Link for fan control?

[BiotechBen]

When the fans really loud, are you seeing unusually high temps or are the fans just noisy all the time.

[Ascend_Beyond]

1 minute ago, WoodenMarker said:

Is the usb 2.0 header from the cooler connected to the motherboard and have you tried using Corsair Link for fan control?

I'll have to try and find the cable or get a new one and fiddle with that again. I'm not sure why I removed it, whether it was a cable management eyesore or if I planned on messing with other USB accessories (probably over-obsession with RGB). It's not preferable to me to have more/multiple apps to fiddle with or run at startup, but that'd be fine.

[Ascend_Beyond]

Just now, BiotechBen said:

When the fans really loud, are you seeing unusually high temps or are the fans just noisy all the time.

This current build used to be relatively silent when I first built it, but now it's audible, however minimal, at all times. My temps are fine and back where I want them now with push-pull, but since moving the rad, the temps aren't as good if I didn't add the fans. I'm also not overclocking my CPU at the moment, just running stock 4.2-4.5 turbo vs fixed all-core 4.8 or whatever it was.

[WoodenMarker]

8 minutes ago, Ascend_Beyond said:

I'll have to try and find the cable or get a new one and fiddle with that again. I'm not sure why I removed it, whether it was a cable management eyesore or if I planned on messing with other USB accessories (probably over-obsession with RGB). It's not preferable to me to have more/multiple apps to fiddle with or run at startup, but that'd be fine.

If you prefer to avoid the usb 2.0 cable / Corsair Link, use fewer fans or use splitters so all of the fans can plug into the motherboard. 

[Ascend_Beyond]

One thing that I was kind of thinking about was a comment Linus made in a recent video where I believe he said something along the lines of push/pull not really being worth it with cheaper fans vs just having one or the other with really good fans. I've been getting into watching or staying up with tech vids more often again and sort of second-guessing a lot of stuff with my build.

[BiotechBen]

3 minutes ago, Ascend_Beyond said:

This current build used to be relatively silent when I first built it, but now it's audible, however minimal, at all times. My temps are fine and back where I want them now with push-pull, but since moving the rad, the temps aren't as good if I didn't add the fans. I'm also not overclocking my CPU at the moment, just running stock 4.2-4.5 turbo vs fixed all-core 4.8 or whatever it was.

you mentioned before that it was water cooled, have you checked the Radiator to make sure coolant flow isn't being impeded. 

[Ascend_Beyond]

Just now, BiotechBen said:

you mentioned before that it was water cooled, have you checked the Radiator to make sure coolant flow isn't being impeded. 

I'm not quite sure how to monitor my AIO in terms of flow or coolant temp. This one got RMA'd less than a year after I got it, but it's been working seemingly (mostly) fine for at least 2 years after I got it replaced. I guess it might be getting a little weaker or need replacing (coolant or the whole thing) about now.

[narrdarr]

two things

1. no matter what you do air flow in that case isn't that great

2. asus motherboard by default has a 75c critical temp which makes the fan jump to 100% some motherboards allow for you to disable it in bios but most need to be done using the asus software.

[BiotechBen]

29 minutes ago, Ascend_Beyond said:

I'm not quite sure how to monitor my AIO in terms of flow or coolant temp. This one got RMA'd less than a year after I got it, but it's been working seemingly (mostly) fine for at least 2 years after I got it replaced. I guess it might be getting a little weaker or need replacing (coolant or the whole thing) about now.

if you can unmount the AIO and rad, you can see how its doing for flow by trying to empty it through the whole loop. If there is restricted flow through the rad or tubing, it can cause it to heat up more or require higher RPM for the fans. also, where is you pump in relation to the Rad, above, below, same height...

[Fasauceome]

Just so you know, your room getting hot means the heat is getting dumped out of your case and off the components which is exactly what you would want.

 

Your room has to have good circulation as well because there is only so much space for that heat to spread out. If your room is filled with hot air, your PC has no choice but to become hot as well. No amount of airflow and cooling will keep a CPU in a hot room cool.