Nepton 120XL AIO not pumping water but is turned on

[Bafalo]

I did a routine dust clean and replaced the thermal paste of my Cooler Master Nepton 120XL AIO, mounted to the middle-top of my case (the waterblock below the tubing entrance on the radiator, the CPU to the left of the radiator aka rear of the case). The pump/waterblock was previously plugged in to the CPU_fan header and the fans in the usual SYS_fan headers. After the clean I booted the PC and was met with temps going up to 80+ celsius purely on boot and noticed that there was no water being moved around in the tubes, no sounds or vibrations.

 

I tried plugging the waterblock/pump header into SYS_fan headers as well as removing all the fans from any headers and running the waterblock from the CPU header alone but nothing changed. I checked the waterblock speed in the BIOS and the CPU_header was being registered at around 2600rpm set to Normal on my Gigabyte b85-HD3 rev 2.1. It did jump from 2600 to 0 a few times in a split second, but I figured it might just be the BIOS catching up to me changing the fan speeds to try and fix it. The Cooler Master logo on the waterblock is lit up and the fans are of course spinning from the SYS_fan headers. It seems to be registering and powered on.

I reset the CMOS as well as updated the BIOS to the latest version. I removed the waterblock and reapplied the thermal paste, and also removed the radiator and rotated it a bunch along with the computer  which is now sitting on it's rear (on account of the possibility of air bubbles). I also plugged a normal fan into the CPU_fan header and it worked fine, including changing the speed in the BIOS. I managed to bring the temps down to around 30-40 by reapplying the thermal paste and tightening the waterblock better, but the temps jump quickly to around 60 when any activity occurs.

I've seen mentions of possible air bubbles in the (now somewhat older) AIO but the water is not being moved around whatsoever when booting or when the PC is running. There were some very short burbles a couple times but the water is not being moved at all it seems. I'll leave it overnight to maybe josh the bubbles a little while it is on it's back, if any are present. Otherwise I don't really know what could be causing this, unless a pump can die and still be registered as working? Thank you in advance for any help!

 

Specs:
Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 64-bit
Intel Core i7 4790 @ 3.60GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz
Cooler Master Nepton 120XL AIO
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. B85-HD3

[Harmsway1283]

10 minutes ago, Bafalo said:

I'll leave it overnight to maybe josh the bubbles a little while it is on it's back,

That the best thing you could do right now. It probably is a couple bubbles causing a sort of “vapor lock” or reducing the flow inside the block.

[SamClan]

Time to check bios. 

 

Wherever you plugged your pump in it has to be set up in bios either full speed or headder as pump headder some motherboards have that feature. 

 

 

 

Pumps are designed to run only on full speed ( that is my knowledge right now, a little new in the water cooling stuff ) 

[Bafalo]

The temps are stable but in a range that's a bit higher than I'd like. I will probably switch the AIO out for a 212 EVO