Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 - High pitch pump noise

[freeagent]

Holy balls do0d, that is a solid improvement!

 

Its like a whole new cooler now.. good job 

[RevGAM]

15 hours ago, OrpheuS_ said:

Will check that out, much thanks man 

Don't forget to quote or tag who you're responding to. I'm one of the few that follows every thread I participate in. 

[OrpheuS_]

@RevGAM For sure man, will do from now on.

 

Just got an update from Arctic support :

Quote

To be honest, its very odd that two AIOs produce this noise. We have never had this problem before.
Are you sure that this noise is not coming from the GPU or PSU?

All i could offer you now would be for us to check your AIO in our warehouse for a possible defect.
To do this, i would need a copy of the invoice and your full delivery address in advance.

Hey maybe I'm just incredibly lucky and discovered a rare legendary new sound no one has ever heard before. Who knows. 

I was starting to believe this was the normal sound of any AIO and maybe I was just looking into it too much because my case sits on my desk next to me but nope it's definitely not "normal" behavior. Will keep you updated on my next move, if any.

[QuantumSingularity]

Judging by the way you mounted the AIO in the video i can safely assume you skipped the GN video of rad orientation that Arctic provide even on their website. If it's still mounted the same way as in the video, remount the radiator with the tubes on the BOTTOM side before you start hearing even worse sounds.

 

[OrpheuS_]

You assumed wrong good sir, as I said in the disclaimer on my very first post :

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Disclaimer : I know the AIO should be mounted with tubes coming out from the bottom but I couldn't because of GPU length.

The Arctic documentation shows (and several youtube videos from gamers nexus/jayztwocents etc) that tubes coming out from the top is fine if the pump is below the highest point in the loop, which is the case here.

I watched the entirety of Steve's video as well as the one from Jayztwocents explicitly saying that tubes up is fine as long as the pump is below the highest point of the radiator (at 14:30) : 

The Arctic documentation even says so (risk of "bubbling noise" yes, but that's not what I'm hearing).

 

Granted it's not the absolute ideal configuration but with how stiff the tubing from the LFII is, it's physically impossible to bend them enough to go around the GPU. I'd need to find an AIO with very flexible ones if I want to achieve that (there's about 3cm of space between the end of my GPU and the rad). Even then, the sound I'm hearing has nothing to do with rad placement according to Arctic support.

[RevGAM]

1 hour ago, OrpheuS_ said:

You assumed wrong good sir, as I said in the disclaimer on my very first post :

I watched the entirety of Steve's video as well as the one from Jayztwocents explicitly saying that tubes up is fine as long as the pump is below the highest point of the radiator (at 14:30) : 

The Arctic documentation even says so (risk of "bubbling noise" yes, but that's not what I'm hearing).

 

Granted it's not the absolute ideal configuration but with how stiff the tubing from the LFII is, it's physically impossible to bend them enough to go around the GPU. I'd need to find an AIO with very flexible ones if I want to achieve that (there's about 3cm of space between the end of my GPU and the rad). Even then, the sound I'm hearing has nothing to do with rad placement according to Arctic support.

:

1. Pull the rad out, turn it over and hold it vertical with tubes at the bottom. Does the sound still happen? Cuz, you know, it's pretty annoying.
2. Find replacement tubing that is longer and more flexible, but has low permeability. Turn that puppy upside down. 
3. Return it and get a different brand.
4. Try the refund idea they gave you. 
5. Grin and bear it.  

[NorKris]

On 11/6/2023 at 7:36 PM, QuantumSingularity said:

Judging by the way you mounted the AIO in the video i can safely assume you skipped the GN video of rad orientation that Arctic provide even on their website. If it's still mounted the same way as in the video, remount the radiator with the tubes on the BOTTOM side before you start hearing even worse sounds.

 

 

[OrpheuS_]

@RevGAM 5 for now, 3 asap. 

[QuantumSingularity]

It's your AIO after all. The idea of tubes down is not only for better acoustics, but better coolant flow, thus better heat transfer, thus better CPU cooling. Just for refferrrnce - my LFII 360 is locked at 50% at all times and is DEAD SILENT while holding the 5800X3D, a hot chip, at 57.5°C during gaming. I mean you have to open the case and get you ear right next to the small VRM to hear anything. Only in Cyberpunk does it get above 65°C when SMT and all cores get hammered hard.

[OrpheuS_]

Tubes down is definitely the way to go and will always be, on that I completely agree with you. It's just not possible to do with that particular AIO and my current setup.

[OrpheuS_]

Quick update, today the pump was absolutely silent and I was shocked to finally hear complete and blissful silence.

 

I turned on HWiNFO to check for anything that might explain why and as soon as I did the sound was back and my 2 hard drives located behind the motherboard turned themselves back on. I'm starting to believe that this sound is actually caused by either one or both HDDs and not the actual AIO pump. Since those are all very close together there's a chance I might've been wrong all along thinking it was the pump.

 

I'm not 100% sure yet though, I've never known a perfectly healthy HDD to produce this particular noise so I'd have to replace both of them with SATA SSDs to see if anything changes.

[RevGAM]

3 hours ago, OrpheuS_ said:

Quick update, today the pump was absolutely silent and I was shocked to finally hear complete and blissful silence.

 

I turned on HWiNFO to check for anything that might explain why and as soon as I did the sound was back and my 2 hard drives located behind the motherboard turned themselves back on. I'm starting to believe that this sound is actually caused by either one or both HDDs and not the actual AIO pump. Since those are all very close together there's a chance I might've been wrong all along thinking it was the pump.

 

I'm not 100% sure yet though, I've never known a perfectly healthy HDD to produce this particular noise so I'd have to replace both of them with SATA SSDs to see if anything changes.

Seems like a possibility given how noisy HDDs can be. If the system doesn't boot from them, simply disconnect the power for both and try using your system. If one is the boot drive, disconnect the other one and try. If you still hear the noise, you can then try an SSD.

[OrpheuS_]

Yep so the issue was definitely those HDDs, I just disabled them entirely and the noise is gone. I really didn't think hard drives could emit such a sound so I didn't even think about them at first. I'm glad to have found the culprit and will probably inform Arctic about it, the pump is indeed completely silent which is good news.