Corsair h100i v2 not cooling well

Thanks for the reply, I'll look into that. A bad mounting was the only thing I really thought could be an error on my part but I didn't know what the problem would be. When I first removed the cooler off the CPU the thermal paste was spread out so I figured it has to be touching at least somewhat.

By mounting bracket do you mean the plastic/metal thing you put on the back of the Motherboard? Mine seemed symmetrical so a 180 degree rotation doesn't seem like it'd change much and I recall it fitting through the Mobo well. If you mean mounting the cooler onto the CPU, that seemed strange. I was able to screw down all the screws tight but getting it on seemed kinda finicky and it kept wanting to pop up (although a lot of this PC building stuff isn't exactly how I would've expected it to be). The Corsair logo is oriented the right way so I don't know what I'd be doing wrong but when I do the remounting I'll analyze every step to make sure it's right. I'd like to wait for another opinion but if there's not one I'll go ahead with the remounting. It may have to be tomorrow though as processes like this take me a while.

Thanks for the replies, these were the kind I was hoping for. I believe I would catch something like using the wrong parts, but I'll check those and make sure I have the bracket rotated correctly when I remount it. Was that amount of liquid not concerning? It's still there and I don't see a break or anything else like that, but I don't know what else it would be coming from.

Welp, I remounted it and checked the things you guys suggested but nothing seems to have changed. You can view the Imgur album for the full process. Other than RMAing it there's only one other thing I could think of, but idk if it would really help. In the manual Corsair recommends making the CPU fans an intake so cool air will be blown over the radiator (the area around the CPU is pretty warm when I stick my hand near it, I guess that's what's going through the radiator but other people didn't say this prevented it from working), but everyone else recommended making it an exhaust because of dust. I can't mount the radiator on the front because of a lack of room, but I could just flip the fans and make them intake. However, that leaves me with two other case fans, and one still has to be a bottom front intake for the HDD so I guess it would just be one exhaust in the back which isn't great for dust either.

What do you guys recommend next? Although I might have to wait a few days for a new cooler (or just buy a new one and return the old one afterwards) it seems I could RMA it. I wish my CPU came with a stock cooler so I could compare temps and noise, and have one for the intermediate time. If that's the best route to go then should I go air or liquid, and then which one out of that based on my specs and what I've told you? Or should I do something else?

http://imgur.com/a/Msbmu

Thanks for the continued help. When I saw that I thought it could be because I had my thermal paste last time a little more towards one side, but that's not the reason because it's the wrong side. Something does seem suspicious there and changing this seems like it could have more effect than what I did yesterday. I'm glad I took pictures of everything. I'll check for anything that's hitting or stress and adjust accordingly, hopefully it helps.

Somehow I think the amount of thermal paste looked a little bigger in the picture, but I'll try less next time.

Hi again, just did those steps. Started off with checking for any capacitors or stuff touching the mounting bracket. I searched for people with my cooler and motherboard and they didn't have the problem, and I couldn't find anything either. All capacitors were visible and clear, and I ran a toothpick under the bracket on all sides to make sure nothing was touching. Next was rotating the radiator. When rotating it the fan cords appeared on the wrong side, so I unscrewed those as well and turned them around. As you can see in the pics, I successfully rotated the radiator around and now have the pipes coming out the front. However, when I plugged it all in and turned it on, something was wrong. The area around the CPU was cool, but this was probably since I'd only made it to the desktop and hadn't interacted past typing in my password. The CPU was overheating. I first noticed a vibration sound that I wasn't sure what it was coming from. I thought maybe too tight/loose fan, but it was probably the way I'd wired some cables. I previously had the CPU power cable and the pump power cable run under the radiator to their headers but since I took the radiator off I had room for better cable management. This got them closer to the fans though and the CPU power cable is touching the bottom of the left fan slightly because of a lack of room.

This is more easily resolved and less severe than the overheating, though. The first sign of this was the red CPU_LED came on. Next, the Corsair logo turned red which I was aware meant overheating but I hadn't experienced it before. I instantly shut it off but turned it on again to go into BIOS and check temps and settings (I had gone into BIOS earlier in the day but made no changes). However, this didn't seem possible as I was met with the CPU overheating screen and turned it off for the last time.

I first thought I may have forgot to plug in a cable. I disproved this with a couple reasons. One, all fans were still spinning which means I remembered to get those two CPU fans. Along with that actually, the CPU fans spinning and the Corsair logo lighting up proves it has power since my cooler only has two cables running it out of it: one connecting the fans and the other supplying power.

This leaves me with two possibilities I could think of. First, the pump or something else with the cooler could've finally broken. Or, maybe the cooler could've come detached from the CPU. I didn't unscrew the water block when I rotated the radiator. I didn't feel like I really pulled on it, but idk. Iirc some people attach the water block first which would've been similar to this. I also had the screws on as far as they wanted to go and it appears to be in its original position. As of right now I'm without a PC because of this but I have other things I can do in the meantime.

I'm on mobile so I couldn't make descriptions and they're out of order, but the bottom two pictures showed the clear capacitors, and the top two show the newly rotated radiator. It didn't feel very stressed, it felt pretty good but obviously something's wrong.

Any advice?

http://m.imgur.com/a/ROJF5