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H80i - serious issues please help!!

Tags:
  • Overclocking
  • Intel i7
  • Corsair
  • Thermal Compound
  • Cooling
  • Components
Last response: in Components
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September 14, 2014 4:28:52 AM

Hi everyone, I bought a corsair h80i cooler to pop on my i7-950 in a bid to mess around with some overclocking after years of running the CPU on its stock cooler.

I researched a good thermal paste and ended up buying a tube of gelid gc-extreme to use instead of the pre-applied stuff in order to get max benefit out of the cooler upgrade.

My problem is, I don't know if I'm just missing something so incredibly obvious or if my cooler is faulty. As soon as I switch the computer on, and go into bios, the CPU temperature increases at the rate of about 1 degree C per second. The fans of the cooler really started kicking in, but the temp still kept climbing.. Even though literally all I am doing is looking at a screen in bios.

At about 80C I switched off the machine, to avoid it climbing any further.

My question therefore is: how do I know whether I'm installing it wrong or if my cooler is faulty? I cleaned both the copper cooler block and the CPU with 99.9% isopropyl, and the first time I tried it I used the little applicator gelid includes in the packaging. The second time I realised the backplate was loose and put some plastic washers behind the motherboard to make sure the standoff screws were down tight. The third time I tried applying the paste onto the centre of the CPU and did the "pea method" - I didn't use the applicator, just put the waterblock on and screwed down. I have tried varying tightness of the screws. Obviously I cleaned parts and applied fresh thermal paste each time I removed the water block.

What is going wrong for me? Please help!

More about : h80i issues

Best solution

a b K Overclocking
September 14, 2014 6:49:10 AM

Try pressing with your hand down on the pump to create a tighter connection to the CPU underneath it. If there is an issue with the tightness of the connection, you should immediately observe a temperature drop.

If there is no temperature drop, then it's probably as tight as it should be or there is another problem.

It sounds like you have approximately 60 seconds, so I don't know if this will work.

You should be able to hear the pump working it should be a very low-noise hum. If you can't hear it, put a screwdriver to the top of the pump and your ear to the other side of the screwdriver to amplify the sound.

Now test the pipes leading out of the pump. At 80C, one should be substantially hotter than the other. That means the liquid is circulating and heat exchange is taking place in the radiator. if both are warm, the radiator has an issue.

Check the fan(s) on the radiator. Are they turning and passing an observable amount of air through the radiator? hold a strip of tissue paper to the exhaust side of the radiator to verify this. Also that air should be warmer than ambient if your CPU is running at 80C. I've once heard of a fan that was incorrectly wired at the factory, so the fan was turning the wrong way regarding the orientation of its blades - made for very poor airflow.

Let us know what you find.
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September 14, 2014 3:42:11 PM

Karsten75 said:
Try pressing with your hand down on the pump to create a tighter connection to the CPU underneath it. If there is an issue with the tightness of the connection, you should immediately observe a temperature drop.

If there is no temperature drop, then it's probably as tight as it should be or there is another problem.

It sounds like you have approximately 60 seconds, so I don't know if this will work.

You should be able to hear the pump working it should be a very low-noise hum. If you can't hear it, put a screwdriver to the top of the pump and your ear to the other side of the screwdriver to amplify the sound.

Now test the pipes leading out of the pump. At 80C, one should be substantially hotter than the other. That means the liquid is circulating and heat exchange is taking place in the radiator. if both are warm, the radiator has an issue.

Check the fan(s) on the radiator. Are they turning and passing an observable amount of air through the radiator? hold a strip of tissue paper to the exhaust side of the radiator to verify this. Also that air should be warmer than ambient if your CPU is running at 80C. I've once heard of a fan that was incorrectly wired at the factory, so the fan was turning the wrong way regarding the orientation of its blades - made for very poor airflow.

Let us know what you find.


Thank you so much for all of your suggestions! I'm pretty much certain it's faulty now.

I tried pressing down on the block, this made no difference to the temp rising.
I couldn't really hear any hum from the pump... but its hard to hear over the h80i's fans as they were roaring at max rpm. I tried the screwdriver thing, and couldnt hear anything other than a very very small vibration... but keep in mind I have about 4 hdd's in the machine. I unplugged them, but still couldn't identify the hum you mentioned.

As far as the pipes go... I held onto both as the CPU temp rose through from 60 to 80c.. they were both cold.
Same with the air from the fans.. there was definitely no heat coming from the air they were exhausting... but they were both spinning in the right direction, and a large breeze could be noticed from the exhaust side, in fact it was so strong it fluttered papers on my desk.

All of these factors point to a faulty pump. I'm taking it back today for a replacement... thank you so much for all of your help :) 
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September 16, 2014 3:42:00 AM

Karsten75 said:
Try pressing with your hand down on the pump to create a tighter connection to the CPU underneath it. If there is an issue with the tightness of the connection, you should immediately observe a temperature drop.

If there is no temperature drop, then it's probably as tight as it should be or there is another problem.

It sounds like you have approximately 60 seconds, so I don't know if this will work.

You should be able to hear the pump working it should be a very low-noise hum. If you can't hear it, put a screwdriver to the top of the pump and your ear to the other side of the screwdriver to amplify the sound.

Now test the pipes leading out of the pump. At 80C, one should be substantially hotter than the other. That means the liquid is circulating and heat exchange is taking place in the radiator. if both are warm, the radiator has an issue.

Check the fan(s) on the radiator. Are they turning and passing an observable amount of air through the radiator? hold a strip of tissue paper to the exhaust side of the radiator to verify this. Also that air should be warmer than ambient if your CPU is running at 80C. I've once heard of a fan that was incorrectly wired at the factory, so the fan was turning the wrong way regarding the orientation of its blades - made for very poor airflow.

Let us know what you find.


Yep, so I took it back to where I bought it, they tested it and rendered the pump faulty. They gave me a new one, just put it in and hey presto, I'm getting idle temps of around 32 degrees C!! :) 
I think the tubes may have even been installed the wrong way in the old unit, as they crossed over and didn't sit properly now that I compare with the new one.

Anyways, thanks for all of your help :) 
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a b K Overclocking
September 16, 2014 7:11:41 AM

You are welcome. Glad it worked out. :)  sometimes I guess stuff are just borked in the box.
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