Possible AIO breakdown?

[Orex]

Hi everyone,

 

I have a system that is about 4 years old exactly currently with a 360mm AIO Liquid cooler in it. Since a few months back, my heating has started to get bad on my CPU. I have had temps reaching 100C a few times and a few emergency shut downs due to heating issues. I replaced the thermal paste with a new spread and that seems to be helping, but the heat still seems to be much more than I ever remember it being. Is it possible my AIO cooler has a micro tear or something and has been losing liquid? Or that the pump is out? Any way to test this? My next step would be to buy a new AIO and install that to see if that would help but I am not sure if that's what's going on. Any suggestions would be great.

 

Edit,

I wanted to add, only two of my cores spike to 100 and throttle down to the 70's and 80's. The other two reach maybe 90 but stay stable in the 80's. 

[Christophe Corazza]

11 minutes ago, Orex said:

Or that the pump is out?

 

Can you hear the pump? They make noise. If it's doing something, it should be making some audible noise and you should "feel" water flowing. The only other way you're going to get temperatures like that with a water cooler is if you used no/bad/old thermal paste, or the block is not mounted properly and barely touching the CPU. But since you said you've changed the thermal paste, I doubt that this is the issue.

[Orex]

Just now, Christophe Corazza said:

 

Can you hear the pump? They make noise. If it's doing something, it should be making some audible noise and you should "feel" water flowing. The only other way you're going to get temperatures like that with a water cooler is if you used no/bad/old thermal paste, or the block is not mounted properly and barely touching the CPU. But since you said you've changed the thermal paste, I doubt that this is the issue.

Since I posted I turned my system off, then put a hand on the tubes/pump area for the AIO and turned the PC on. I feel vibration in the tubes, but there is alot of fan noise when I turn the PC on so I can't really hear any liquid moving in the tubes or system itself. But there does seem to be movement in the AIO. I feel like this is the only thing it could be since I haven't had these kinds of temps in the past and it just started happening basically beginning of this year. The new Paste I used is MX-4 Arctic which was rated highly, and its stopped my PC from totally shutting down in heavier games like PUBG and Doom. But the temps are still not where I want them to be.

 

I am sort of tempted to just go get a new cooler and see if that changes it, that would be the best way to check at this point I feel like. 

[Orex]

This is how my system is built. The AIO cooler radiator is at the top of the case. 

 

All of my temps are around the 30C range when no heavy graphical or intense games are loaded on my PC. So it does seem like it may be working, but it doesn't seem to be working like it used to when under load. 

[Christophe Corazza]

23 minutes ago, Orex said:

The new Paste I used is MX-4 Arctic which was rated highly

 

Arctic MX-4 is indeed an excellent thermal paste.

 

25 minutes ago, Orex said:

Since I posted I turned my system off, then put a hand on the tubes/pump area for the AIO and turned the PC on. I feel vibration in the tubes, but there is alot of fan noise when I turn the PC on so I can't really hear any liquid moving in the tubes or system itself.

 

This obviously means that there is water movement inside the AIO. That's a good thing, though be it that it's still not known if the pump is failing or that your loop contains air.

[Christophe Corazza]

17 minutes ago, Orex said:

All of my temps are around the 30C range when no heavy graphical or intense games are loaded on my PC.

 

30 degrees is actually perfectly fine. If it helps:

I always use these typical operating ranges for the core temperature (at 22 °C standard ambient temperature): 

 

80 °C  Hot         (100% Load)
75 °C  Warm 
70 °C  Warm     (Heavy Load)
60 °C  Normal
50 °C  Normal   (Medium Load)
40 °C  Normal
30 °C  Cool       (Idle)

[Orex]

Thanks Christophe and everyone else. I appreciate your feedback. So under no load my idle is fine. My concern is when I put on PUBG, Doom, any game with a decent load, it spikes up to 90+ on several of my cores and touches 100C. It used to never do this. So my conclusion at this point is maybe I am losing some pump power and its just not moving the heat fast enough. I may just get a new AIO and see if that resolves anything, if not I will try something else. Unless there is any other suggestions. 

[Christophe Corazza]

What AIO do you have?

[Orex]

Just now, Christophe Corazza said:

What AIO do you have?

I have this one https://www.originpc.com/gearshop/products/1703

This PC was a custom built I got from them a few years ago. Everything has ran stable and fine since then except for the recent issues with CPU temps. 

I am thinking about trying the Corsair 360mm, I have heard good things about it, and I can go get one today vs waiting for shipping from this company. 

[Christophe Corazza]

6 minutes ago, Orex said:

I have this one https://www.originpc.com/gearshop/products/1703

This PC was a custom built I got from them a few years ago. Everything has ran stable and fine since then except for the recent issues with CPU temps. 

I am thinking about trying the Corsair 360mm, I have heard good things about it, and I can go get one today vs waiting for shipping from this company. 

 

I do expect that your AIO is losing coolant. When an AIO loses coolant, it is common that temperatures will start increasing until eventually it's noticable enough... like in your situation.

Manufacturers like Corsair offer 5 years warranty on their AIO coolers simply because this can be an issue with som units. They will then tell you to RMA the cooler. However, I don't know about Origin's warranty policy though.

I would suggest contacting them to see if they also offer a 5 year warranty period (your PC is 4 years old). If so, then you should RMA it. Otherwise you should consider buying a new cooler.

[Daniel644]

stupid question but have you dusted it? radiators just like other things with a bunch of air moving through them can get clogged with dust (even on a filtered case) and if it's clogged then it can't get good enough airflow to cool adequately under load.

 

most likely tho is something called Permeation, this is the liquid inside evaporating out through the rubber tubes. generally speaking you should expect about a 5 year life cycle from a non-refillable AIO, this is one of the reasons some folks dislike AIO's and instead choose large air coolers.

[Dark Zenith]

About AIO’s losing coolant.  I am unsure about this on my Corsair that I’ve had running for years.  The only issue I have encountered was that the pumps were failing.  On an H50 original, an h60 original, no issues with any of the h60 revised setups.  What I did end up doing recently was I discovered that my fan was seized behind the radiator and the push fan was dying. I ended up getting a pair of the new Noctua 120mm fans  and the system I thought was dying is once again fully over locked with zero issues.  I have an i7-3770k @4.5ghz.   I had thought it was destabilizing from age but now is working great again.  Might want to double check your fans.  Also maybe remove the cooler and set in front of you on your desk sideways, see if you hear/feel bubbling happen while shifting the position.  Also try running it in that position.  Lastly toss a pair of fans to start running in a push and pull configuration.  

 

While the the system has been running for a bit out your fingers on the pump, does it feel quite rough instead of nice and smooth? I’ve heard on one case where one of the propellers in the pump had worn off or something so it wasn’t moving fluid properly. One last thing I would suggest is if you have a thermal probe, temperature gun or even a simple digital food thermometer then while you have the radiator on the desk in front of you put the probe in when the system has been off awhile.  Then turn on and use the system, if the radiator starts heating up on both ends then you know it is working and the problem is elsewhere.  It could even be as simple as thermal segregation of the processor (if you’ve been overclocking) causing increased resistance and in turn higher temperature generation. 

[Orex]

Hey guys thanks for the continued questions and suggestions. 

 

Turns out it "may" have been something way more simple then I thought. It's possible the cord governing the pumps was simply slightly out of place or something. I took off the side of my tower case and was messing with moving cables around and just kind of checking on things. When I launched Doom this time on Ultra settings the most my temps are moving to is 70C. So it may have not been pumping due to a simple technical issue. I am going to be running PUBG to see how that does after this level on Doom. But its like night and day so far. 

 

Will keep you guys updated.