10 fans, yet still can't keep AIO liquid down

[Pnova7]

Hi all,

 

For the past months I've been struggling to keep my PC chilled and cool, and the results haven't been impressive. For the record, I have a 5950x cooled by a NZXT Kraken z73 in a Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL case. My CPU temperatures at first were jumping around the 70s to 80C, obviously creating a ton of heat in the case, while my AIO liquid sat at 45C. This also resulted in my platter harddrives getting very toasted, reaching temps of 56C. My GPU (1080ti) was also reaching around the 70s too. Since then, I've managed to lower the temp of my CPU how bringing its core voltage down to 1.1250V, which during heavy workload at max saw 62C, so that was a win. Meanwhile, I undervolted my GPU so now the highest it goes is now 66C. However, my liquid temps didn't change, at all. I have 9 fans in my Lian Li case, originally 3 bottom as intake, while the 3 sides and top 3 AIO served as exhaust. However, I've recently changed my side fans to intake as well which did slightly help but not by much. I then went ahead and changed my AIO fans, as I was using Corsair QL for those and was suggested by some that those are terrible radiator fans. I since swapped them with Corsair ML Pros, and again, I saw a slight difference, but nothing crazy. The biggest improvement I saw was perhaps removing the top dust filter, which I know I shouldn't do as that's not what Lian Li intended, but it did certainly help rid of my PC of more hot air so I'm glad for that. Finally, I decided to add a 10th fan into the case, serving as another exhaust to help out the top 3.

 

After all that, my liquid temps during gaming only reach now 42C instead of the previous 45C. That said, I'm getting told by others that is still too high of a liquid temperature to have. So now I'm at a loss, as I'm not sure what else I could do. My fans run of around 1085 RPM or so, which already is more than what those who told me about this have. So I'm here reaching out for some help and guidance, as I'm out of ideas. Maybe I have some sort of "setting" enabled that causes AIO temperatures to rise high and everyone but me has this off... I don't know.

 

For context, the only overclocking on the CPU is RAM (to 3600) and the core voltage set to 1.1250V. I'm also on the latest BIOS, Windows and version of NZXT CAM.

 

The PC setup:

 

 

My specs are as follows:

Windows 10 Pro

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor

NVIDIA GeForce EVGA 1080ti SC2

NZXT Kraken Z73 73.11 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

MSI PRESTIGE X570 CREATION EATX AM4 Motherboard

G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory

Samsung 980 Pro 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive

EVGA G5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

2 Platter Seagate Hard drives in Hotswap bay

7 Corsair Q120

3 Corsair ML120 Pro

 

[Ryzen-9]

First thing that comes to mind would be to check if the pump is dead.

[Pnova7]

12 minutes ago, Ryzen-9 said:

First thing that comes to mind would be to check if the pump is dead.

It's only a few months old, bought in February of this year (can they die that fast?), but who knows, I suppose I can try and bring it into my local computer shop for them to examine if the pump is dead or not. I should note, the pump RPM is 2419 or so and actively changes.

[Jurrunio]

pump speed too low?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1: its a 16 core cpu. ofc its hot

2: is pbo on? PBO will push the cpu up to 70C almost always. Its designed to boost as high as possible without throtteling.

[Pnova7]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

pump speed too low?

Pump speed is set to 'performance' mode, 2419 RPM or so.

 

1 minute ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

1: its a 16 core cpu. ofc its hot

2: is pbo on? PBO will push the cpu up to 70C almost always. Its designed to boost as high as possible without throtteling.

1. I know, but even so people are still claiming that there is no way my AIO liquid temp should be that high.

2. Nope, I have PBO off.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 minute ago, Pnova7 said:

1. I know, but even so people are still claiming that there is no way my AIO liquid temp should be that high.

2. Nope, I have PBO off.

What are fan speeds like on the rad?

what are the clocks with a sustained all core laod? (like a looped cinebench r20?)

[Pnova7]

43 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

What are fan speeds like on the rad?

what are the clocks with a sustained all core laod? (like a looped cinebench r20?)

1. Like around 1085 RPM or so like I wrote in the OP.

2. No idea, how would I check that? Edit: Oh, I see Cinebench! Yeah, I'll download that right now and give it a try for you.

 

Right, so I just did it and here are the results (image below).

Don't think this Cinebench thing stressed my PC much, as the multi core test my liquid went up to 37 at max, while single core test was 34 max.

[digiguy]

Cooling with a liquid solution has very little to do with how many fans are used.

The primordial factor is the amount of water that is displaced.

Even without fans a radiator will do a good job of dissipating the heat.

A fully filled loop is therefore necessary.

The speed of the pump again isn't saying that much either if it has a defect of some kind.

Restriction in the loop can easily result in performance being just a fraction of it's optimum.

In this case the waterblock (with or without pump) is usually the problem.

[JohnDeereBro]

On 4/14/2021 at 9:49 PM, Pnova7 said:

Pump speed is set to 'performance' mode, 2419 RPM or so.

 

1. I know, but even so people are still claiming that there is no way my AIO liquid temp should be that high.

2. Nope, I have PBO off.

Is there dust in the radiator? That can clog it up. Maybe check.

[birdhuman]

On 4/15/2021 at 12:24 PM, Pnova7 said:

Hi all,

 

For the past months I've been struggling to keep my PC chilled and cool, and the results haven't been impressive. For the record, I have a 5950x cooled by a NZXT Kraken z73 in a Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL case. My CPU temperatures at first were jumping around the 70s to 80C, obviously creating a ton of heat in the case, while my AIO liquid sat at 45C. This also resulted in my platter harddrives getting very toasted, reaching temps of 56C. My GPU (1080ti) was also reaching around the 70s too. Since then, I've managed to lower the temp of my CPU how bringing its core voltage down to 1.1250V, which during heavy workload at max saw 62C, so that was a win. Meanwhile, I undervolted my GPU so now the highest it goes is now 66C. However, my liquid temps didn't change, at all. I have 9 fans in my Lian Li case, originally 3 bottom as intake, while the 3 sides and top 3 AIO served as exhaust. However, I've recently changed my side fans to intake as well which did slightly help but not by much. I then went ahead and changed my AIO fans, as I was using Corsair QL for those and was suggested by some that those are terrible radiator fans. I since swapped them with Corsair ML Pros, and again, I saw a slight difference, but nothing crazy. The biggest improvement I saw was perhaps removing the top dust filter, which I know I shouldn't do as that's not what Lian Li intended, but it did certainly help rid of my PC of more hot air so I'm glad for that. Finally, I decided to add a 10th fan into the case, serving as another exhaust to help out the top 3.

 

After all that, my liquid temps during gaming only reach now 42C instead of the previous 45C. That said, I'm getting told by others that is still too high of a liquid temperature to have. So now I'm at a loss, as I'm not sure what else I could do. My fans run of around 1085 RPM or so, which already is more than what those who told me about this have. So I'm here reaching out for some help and guidance, as I'm out of ideas. Maybe I have some sort of "setting" enabled that causes AIO temperatures to rise high and everyone but me has this off... I don't know.

 

For context, the only overclocking on the CPU is RAM (to 3600) and the core voltage set to 1.1250V. I'm also on the latest BIOS, Windows and version of NZXT CAM.

 

The PC setup:

 

 

My specs are as follows:

Windows 10 Pro

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor

NVIDIA GeForce EVGA 1080ti SC2

NZXT Kraken Z73 73.11 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

MSI PRESTIGE X570 CREATION EATX AM4 Motherboard

G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory

Samsung 980 Pro 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive

EVGA G5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

2 Platter Seagate Hard drives in Hotswap bay

7 Corsair Q120

3 Corsair ML120 Pro

 

You cannot compare liquid temp to air temp. Water cooling has a 2nd heat transfer than air cooling. Each heat transfer require a temperature gap. So only higher gap can have the heat transfer rate at a efficient level.

Water cooling's benefit is not at lower temperature but keeping it more stable.