AIO broken but software showing as working?

[scottiecb19]

Hi All,

 

Hope you can give some advice. I have a 3900X cooled with a NZXT X62. The idle temps are recording between 58-65 Celsius, so I've tried reapplying the thermal paste (Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut) and the temps remain the same. The CAM software is registering the pump as spinning, the rad feels warm (but not hot). The fans on the rad are the included NZXT ones with a custom curve, but even at 100% speed, the temp does not drop. Case is a Phantex Enthoo 713 and is well ventilated with 8 fans total (5 140mm and three 120mm) with a positive pressure bias. My GPU broke recently so I'm only running a small GTX 1650 until I decide whether to go RTX3000 series or one of the new crop of Nvidia/AMD cards.

 

I'm sure when I built the system a couple of years back idle temps on the processor were lower (in the 40's) but I've slept in between so may be mistaken. Looking around though other people are recording idle temps in the 40's, so cannot understand why I'm having issues, especially repasting/reseating the cooler. This isn't my first build, so I'm confident I've got it all right (having checked), but clearly something is amiss. 

 

Any ideas? I'm leaning towards a cooler issue, but don't really want to spend a lot replacing (plus I like the RGB on the pump). I think I'd go air cooled next time, but not sure if that's good for a 3900X?

 

Grateful for any thoughts on this, and thank you kindly in advance. 

[Alinz]

A couple of things could be happening.

 

First of, microbial growth that limits the flowrate (clogging)

Dusty rad/fans that deliver sup par heat dissipation.

Bad mount where there is less contact between the IHC and the cooler

Bad thermal paste application (which I doubt)

 

Id suggest cleaning your case if it need cleaning and check your thermals after.

 

As for aircooling the 3900X, its fine just fine with a good cooler. 

I am personally a big fan of anything Noctua.

[scottiecb19]

Thanks @Alinz, appreciate the reply.

The rads aren't dusty, they have been cleaned. Can't be 100% sure of the mount, but it has previously worked ok and I have reseated now 4 times during my investigation, checking the mounting points and seating each time. I cannot be sure of the microbial growth, I don't think I'm advanced enough to check this (think I remember seeing a J2C video on this), and the block. If there's no other solution, I'll have to go with a new cooler, I was just hoping to avoid any additional costs. 

[Alinz]

Id say your mount is probably fine.

Honestly I don't know whatelse you could check.

 

Have you taken a look at your pump speed? It might be really low. Id suggest you look at that in the bios rather than cam tho. 

 

 

[scottiecb19]

16 hours ago, Alinz said:

Id say your mount is probably fine.

Honestly I don't know whatelse you could check.

 

Have you taken a look at your pump speed? It might be really low. Id suggest you look at that in the bios rather than cam tho. 

 

 

I checked the pump in the BIOS, the curve is a constant 100% and was running at an average of 1600RPM - CAM records the speed at 2700RPM. Quite a difference, but at least show the pump to be spinning.

 

Still looking at the temp and its current 62C. Of note, I dropped the curve in CAM to 75% at the current temp, and it immediately spiked by 4C. After a minute it returned to the same temp, but it's fluctuating more. Liquid temp remains around 35C no matter what. 

 

I've even tried taking the rad off and giving it a good shake to clear any air locks - something I saw on a couple of YT vids, not sure if it's valid or not.

 

I had a look at the air coolers yesterday and was surprised by the prices, I bought one ages ago, a Noctua one, for £30 with the fan. Granted it was a smaller one for an old i7, but the prices are high enough that AIO no longer seems so expensive. 

 

I really am stumped with this one....

[scottiecb19]

Have found this too which mirrors my issue (my rad is side mounted though): 

 

[Alinz]

I feel you Scottie, I've recently moved back to a good old aircooler. 

 

I just like the fact that there is less points of failure on a aircooler.

Fan breaks? Just replace it!

 

Kind of wierd that cam and your bios report back different speeds, I asume you are plugged in to a Pump header rather than a CPU fan header?

 

 

[scottiecb19]

So bit of an update (@Alinz) purchased an open box (turns out with a broken screen so has to go back anyway) Kraken X63. Temps are still the same with that, what's going on? 

 

As an added thing, accidentally managed to pull the cpu out of the socket with the old pump, so the bios settings were reset too, so definitely no overclock settings being missed. 

[Alinz]

I am at a loss on this one.

 

You could always drop the voltage a bit, I found a article on Tom's Hardware forum with the same problem you have, maybe its worth checking it out.

[scottiecb19]

Thanks for the link to TH, I'll check it out. By way of a further update, the X63 replacement I had, had to go back because of a faulty screen. Decided against another NZXT one so went with a Corsair Coreliquid. Though the rad is smaller at 240mm, it does have a cooling fan on the pump head which combined with two 140mm fans blowing directly onto the socket/pump, I hope this will compensate.

 

Alas, same temps, clearly not a cooler issue.

 

So I tried some TG Kryonaut, and temps are not 55-60C, but clearly not as low as I'd hope. I did try reducing the voltage using J2C's vid on this (but no overclock), and it made no difference again. The search for an answer continues, off to TH