Aurora R12, unreasonably loud added fans, performing below expectations?

Question

I'm not sure if it is placebo but I feel like something is not right with my current fan setup or something. Essentially, I did the widely encouraged Push/Pull method for the R12 (using 2 Corsair ML120 Pros) to try and improve the noise/heat in my system. I even got an extra one and placed it where the hard drive would be to act as a pseudo 2nd intake fan in the front. All the fans work and my system runs fine but when I attempt to play a game like Fortnite (medium settings) or Mass Effect Legendary Edition. The fans get REALLY loud when I attempt to bring the fps to 144, quiet at 120, and the system seems unstable at anything above 144. From other examples I see online I see systems with similar specs easily surpass 144 on Fortnite with low/medium settings but for some reason my system can't?

I mostly others help to see if I maybe messed up on reinstalling a component such as the liquid cooling module, fans, cpu, or if this is to be expected. This is my first PC and I know it won't be perfect since it is a pre-built but I believe others had better performance than I do with similar mods.

My specs are:

11th Gen Intel Core i9 11900KF

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X

32GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3400MHz

1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD

Using a 1440p monitor at 240Hz

r72019 · Answer

Also, how did you connect the fans, both radiator fans should be on the same header so they don't fight each other. And what are cpu temps like?

r72019 · Answer

Are you still using the oem AVC fan on the bottom front? Did you confirm both radiator fans are spinning in windows when the pc is on and that the airflow is going up and out for both?

r72019 · Answer

If you are hearing a lot of loud noise I would expect high temps for something and that you still have an OEM fan in there making the noise, or the GPU fan too could make noise.

AquaSpiderGuy · Answer

Yeah I basically have it sandwiched between the two fans now. Reinstalling the AIO felt kinda finicky so I am afraid something went wrong but I doubt so since I feel issues would be worse. Once again, I'm not too fancy on everything so maybe I am wrong. I wouldn't know how to tell if the AIO is or is not working either.

Rabbitdude · Answer

Thermal throttle, when you setup push pull did you unseat the AIO to install the fans then reseat the AIO on the cpu?

AquaSpiderGuy · Answer

I have 3 Corsair ML120 fans (two of which are used in the push/pull configuration) and 1 OEM fan as the intake in the front. Here is a picture of how the push/pull configuration looks, sorry for how bad it looks. I have no idea how to take a good picture to show it off.

r72019 · Answer

When you remove the AIO you need to clear out all the old thermal paste from the CPU and AIO block with 99% IPA and install new thermal paste or you will experience overheat issues.  Thermal paste is one time use only.

r72019 · Answer

AWCC should show the pump running although sometimes it glitches and says CPU fan at 80% fixed or something around there.

Vanadiel · Answer

What is the CPU temperature when playing a game at 144 Hz, and what is the GPU temperature when playing a game at 144 Hz?

Also, 1440P is going to put a lot of extra stress on the GPU versus 1080P. Most gamers who rely on high frame rates use a 1080P monitor.

AquaSpiderGuy · Answer

Thank you, I did remove and reapply thermal paste when placing the AIO. It was my first time so I may have put too much. My AWCC only shows speeds for front and top fans but doesn't say anything about the pump. I'm not sure it ever did display that even before the mods?

AquaSpiderGuy · Answer

These are the readings at 1440p 144fps medium settings while playing fortnite. The first column is current temp, third column is highest temp, and last column is average temp.

Vanadiel · Answer

Your CPU seem to be ok temperatures with a maximum of 72-73 Celsius.

Your GPU is a bit warm at 84.6, The temp limit is 81 Celsius for the GPU. Can you expand the tab for the GPU Performance limit? It will show you all if you hit any performance limits, and which ones.

I would expect it to show thermal limits, since you hit almost 85 Celsius.

AquaSpiderGuy · Answer

So I took another sample, this was playing Mass Effect 3 Legendary Edition at 1440p 144fps. During the portion of the game I was playing the fans seemed really loud and I was at a stable fps. I'm not super PC tech savy so I'm not too intelligent on all the info here, hence why I got a prebuilt, but temps definitely were up. The CPU seemed to fair better though with an average of 58 and max of 69.

mako64 · Answer

Yup ! Definitely have to run msi afterburner for the gpu. I use their custom fan curve option and works like a charm.

Vanadiel · Answer

You are definitely running into the thermal limit of the graphics card. Your average GPU frequency is being lowered by it. You should never run into the thermal limit of the video card.

Are you using a third party app to control the fan speeds of the video card? It looks to me like your video card fans never spin up to their full speed, and their average speeds seems a bit low to me.

I would use MSI Afterburner, switch to manual fan control, and set both fans to 100%. Then try to run the game again and see what the temperatures are. Also ensure to reset all the values in the HwInfo monitoring application before you run the game since you don't want your data to be affected by all the information prior to starting the game.

Also very important is to ensure not to block the sides of the case, as they have important vents on one side to ensure fresh air intake for the GPU fans.

Alienware Desktops

Aurora R12, unreasonably loud added fans, performing below expectations?

Was this post helpful?