Silent loop 360 pump buzz fix?

[Armakar]

Just put my silent loop 3 in. My case has sound dampening and everything is whisper quiet apart from a faint buzzing in the pump which gets louder as it ramps up. 

I've already RMAd 3 dead Kraken X62s, a rattling CLC280 and now this - is there any way to fix this? The constant screwing and unscrewing, constant reapplication of thermal paste is going to end up in me damaging something. I really don't want to return it.

How do I get rid of this buzz?

[3 Lions]

Can you live with it? 

[Armakar]

3 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

Can you live with it? 

Yeah but it's kind of annoying, nothing in my build is audible except that pump. If it doesn't go away i'd rather return it and try my 6th pump in 2 weeks.

[3 Lions]

Just now, Armakar said:

Yeah but it's kind of annoying, nothing in my build is audible except that pump. If it doesn't go away i'd rather return it and try my 6th pump in 2 weeks.

Well unfortunately you can't really do anything, all motors and pumps make noise. The only way to remove noise is to do the Linus approach and put the PC in a separate room and use Thunderbolt to make it work.   

[Armakar]

1 minute ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

Well unfortunately you can't really do anything, all motors and pumps make noise. The only way to remove noise is to do the Linus approach and put the PC in a separate room and use Thunderbolt to make it work.   

I was under the impression the reverse pump-flow design means 0 noise from the pump. All the reviews I read said it is completley inaudible, yet with sound dampening foam I can still hear it.

[3 Lions]

1 minute ago, Armakar said:

I was under the impression the reverse pump-flow design means 0 noise from the pump. All the reviews I read said it is completley inaudible, yet with sound dampening foam I can still hear it.

As I said before if you want a true zero db PC then put the PC in a separate room and use Thunderbolt to make it work. 

 

Linus has this exact set-up...

  

[tomaatvk]

5 minutes ago, Armakar said:

I was under the impression the reverse pump-flow design means 0 noise from the pump. All the reviews I read said it is completley inaudible, yet with sound dampening foam I can still hear it.

I have a 280mm version of the silent loop lying around. I used it in a thermaltake core p3 which has no noise isolation at all so any sound was perfectly audible. The first one I had worked perfectly for some time (half a year) after which it would make a slight grinding noise. The one I got from RMA worked perfectly again. While the pump is not 0dB, it is supposed to be relatively quiet.

 

One thing you should take notice off (the product has plenty of warnings on it), you should only supply it with constant 12v of power. As far as I can read from the original post, you did not do this. If the pump ramps up (exept for when turning the pc on/off), that means that you do not supply it with constant voltage. In the bios you have to pin the pump to 100% at all times! If you don't do this you will indeed, over time, damage the pump causing higher failure rates and noise.

 

While my above paragraph could be the cause, what is more likely is one of 3 other posibilities.

1. You expect 0 noise while that is impossible with any moving part. It's supposed to be quiet, not 0dB level. If the noise is really light and only audible during the night or something close to this, you're expecting too much.

2. There are air bubbles stuck in the pump (posibly due to a too low water level which was the problem with my first CLC). You can test this by moving it around a bit and try hearing if you can hear the liquid moving around a lot. If this is the case, could try to reposition the CLC in you case in such a way that air bubbles stay in the rad and don't move to the pump. The pump will sound a like it is faintly grinding something if it is having trouble with air bubbles.

3. The unit is faulty and you need a new one, which is basicly the case if none of the other things is going on.

 

Also, I would like to adress something (not trying to insult), but if this is your 5th unit in 2 weeks, you are most likely doing something wrong, be it expectations or mishandling. The failure rates of CLCs are low enough to make it nearly impossible for that many to be faulty from the factory in such short amount of time. Seeing as you also didn't pay attention to the voltage thing, I suggest reading the manual before installing something as you are clearly doing something wrong.

[Armakar]

9 minutes ago, tomaatvk said:

I have a 280mm version of the silent loop lying around. I used it in a thermaltake core p3 which has no noise isolation at all so any sound was perfectly audible. The first one I had worked perfectly for some time (half a year) after which it would make a slight grinding noise. The one I got from RMA worked perfectly again. While the pump is not 0dB, it is supposed to be relatively quiet.

 

One thing you should take notice off (the product has plenty of warnings on it), you should only supply it with constant 12v of power. As far as I can read from the original post, you did not do this. If the pump ramps up (exept for when turning the pc on/off), that means that you do not supply it with constant voltage. In the bios you have to pin the pump to 100% at all times! If you don't do this you will indeed, over time, damage the pump causing higher failure rates and noise.

 

While my above paragraph could be the cause, what is more likely is one of 3 other posibilities.

1. You expect 0 noise while that is impossible with any moving part. It's supposed to be quiet, not 0dB level. If the noise is really light and only audible during the night or something close to this, you're expecting too much.

2. There are air bubbles stuck in the pump (posibly due to a too low water level which was the problem with my first CLC). You can test this by moving it around a bit and try hearing if you can hear the liquid moving around a lot. If this is the case, could try to reposition the CLC in you case in such a way that air bubbles stay in the rad and don't move to the pump. The pump will sound a like it is faintly grinding something if it is having trouble with air bubbles.

3. The unit is faulty and you need a new one, which is basicly the case if none of the other things is going on.

 

Also, I would like to adress something (not trying to insult), but if this is your 5th unit in 2 weeks, you are most likely doing something wrong, be it expectations or mishandling. The failure rates of CLCs are low enough to make it nearly impossible for that many to be faulty from the factory in such short amount of time. Seeing as you also didn't pay attention to the voltage thing, I suggest reading the manual before installing something as you are clearly doing something wrong.

While the other parts of your post are helpful, the last part pisses me off. Two of the Kraken X62's I sent back were to a website called Box, who test the products vigorously unlike Amazon who take back anyything without question. They determined both pumps were dead on arrival. The third Kraken worked perfectly fine without noise (though temps were crap, 35 degrees idle??), then died after a week - clearly I installed it all right because it worked. One day, it started rattling, 6 hours later it died. Nothing changed.

As for the CLC... it didn't even die. Again, after a few days, it rattled then died. The CLC rattled even when I used it in a testbench. I'm not smashing these coolers against a wall, I've used watercooling for a few years now. The one thing I will point out is, I've installed several corsair AIOs and not a single one has ever had the slightest amount of noise or failed, at all. I've used H60, H75s, H850i and the h100v2 several times, no problems at all. All the retailers have told me they have a high failure rate with all NZXT coolers but almost no returns with a corsair cooler.

But, as for pump speed and air bubbles - the air bubble thing is something I've been told quite a bit recently. How do I get rid of them exactly, just move the radiator? It did buzz quite a bit less when I moved it from the front to the top, the buzzing is almost inaudible but the reason I want to return it is in my experience, buzzing means death is coming. I don't want to have to RMA it to Be Quiet! who are in Germany, as it will be expensive to ship back. If it's going to die, I need to return it in the DOA period.

Lastly, could you elaborate on voltage? I've just got it plugged into the AIO 3-pin on my mobo, it doesn't need anything else. One thing I will point out is that I had to disable "CPU fan speed" or something in the BIOS, as it was complaining about the CPU fan being too slow or not detected, despite the fact I'm idling at 19 degrees.

[tomaatvk]

1 minute ago, Armakar said:

While the other parts of your post are helpful, the last part pisses me off. Two of the Kraken X62's I sent back were to a website called Box, who test the products vigorously unlike Amazon who take back anyything without question. They determined both pumps were dead on arrival. The third Kraken worked perfectly fine without noise (though temps were crap, 35 degrees idle??), then died after a week - clearly I installed it all right because it worked. One day, it started rattling, 6 hours later it died. Nothing changed.

As for the CLC... it didn't even die. Again, after a few days, it rattled then died. The CLC rattled even when I used it in a testbench. I'm not smashing these coolers against a wall, I've used watercooling for a few years now. The one thing I will point out is, I've installed several corsair AIOs and not a single one has ever had the slightest amount of noise or failed, at all. I've used H60, H75s, H850i and the h100v2 several times, no problems at all. All the retailers have told me they have a high failure rate with all NZXT coolers but almost no returns with a corsair cooler.

But, as for pump speed and air bubbles - the air bubble thing is something I've been told quite a bit recently. How do I get rid of them exactly, just move the radiator? It did buzz quite a bit less when I moved it from the front to the top, the buzzing is almost inaudible but the reason I want to return it is in my experience, buzzing means death is coming. I don't want to have to RMA it to Be Quiet! who are in Germany, as it will be expensive to ship back. If it's going to die, I need to return it in the DOA period.

Lastly, could you elaborate on voltage? I've just got it plugged into the AIO 3-pin on my mobo, it doesn't need anything else. One thing I will point out is that I had to disable "CPU fan speed" or something in the BIOS, as it was complaining about the CPU fan being too slow or not detected, despite the fact I'm idling at 19 degrees.

I already expected you wouldn't appreciate the last part of the post. It was not quite clear to what degree you were experienced in such things and generally speaking, people tend to think too greatly of themselves while they are clearly at fault and they just need someone to point it out to them, which is why I wanted to say it. Seems that was an incorrect assumption this time, good to know.

 

I'm going to start with the voltage thing.

Basicly, some types of motors are made with one specific voltage in mind and they tend to act up if they are fed the wrong voltage for extended periods of time. According to the manufacturer, this is one of those. How motherboards vary speeds on 3 pin fan headers is by changing the voltage between a certain value (usually 0 or 5-6v) and 12v. This pump is supposed to run at 12v only. This implies that you are supposed to set the fan header of the pump to 100% fan/pump speed all the time so it will not run at a lower voltage. While you might worry about your pump becoming louder of the higher RPM, my experience is that with a correctly functioning unit, the increase in noise is negledible. As a point of reference, on the 280mm version with 140mm fans, the pump at 50% speed on my motherboard was as loud as the stock fans on 20-30% and at 100% pump speed to those fans at 25-35% (depending on how well the fans have acces to air).

 

Now on to the air bubbles.

What I usually did to get rid of the bubbles and the noise (before I RMA'd it) was take the CLC out of the pc, hold it in front of me with the rad up (the side with the tubes sticking out down) and the pump/cpu block below that and just shake it in every direction (not too clam but not too rough) while keeping the parts in the previously mentioned order of height. Doing this for a minute should solve it for a big part. Also mounting the CLC in your case with the pump/cpu block below the rad should prevent the pump from sucking up any new bubbles (as you already noticed).

However, my first silent loop 280mm had the problem where it was under filled. When shaking it I was able to hear the sound of water moving around very loudly, getting close to the sound of moving a bucket filled for 1/4th with water from left to right. The CLC itself did not die at any point, it just started making the noise again very soon after getting the bubbles out of the pump/cpu block leading to me returning it (I had this problem for 2 months before being too fed up with it). The second unit did not have this problem, I just shook it a bit before installing and it never had the problem again.