Aurora R6, Corsair H60 Cooler to replace stock, Epic Fail

Hi Vanadiel,

Sadly none of those are at play here. I've tried both directions and even put together a push pull fan rig. I dont use the side wall of my A6 as I prefer to keep it all open like my VME rack. Air flow is as good as it gets.

Thanks

D

Incorrectly installed could be a possibility. Incorrect direction of cooling fan, lack of fresh air entering the case, air flow on radiator is blocked. things like that can cause it not to function properly.

If you prefer to leave the side wall of your R6 then there is no airflow at all.

Can you use your finger to touch the two tubes connected to the pump and feel one tube getting warmer during load?  It almost sounded like the pump of either stock or H60 is not working.  If the pump had failed, cpu temp would steadily rise at idle and both tubes feel cool.   if your cpu can idle at 50, the pump must be working.  Verify pump rpm using HWmonitor.

based on all you have reported most likely your R6 case has pretty bad air flow. No matter how good the H60 is, there is not enough body of cold air enter the case and blow across the rad to exit.  In that case, your finger would feel both tubes warm up significantly during load with almost no noticeable difference in temp, which shows the rad heat exchanger is not able to cool the liquid.

Having side panel of chassis open is counterintuitively bad for air flow.  If possible use a spare test psu that is installed outside Aurora case.  And close the side panel.  You want to have a good front to back air flow which also helps upward air flow to the rad.  having side panel open disrupts unidirectional air flow from front to back.  The stock psu swing arm is horrible for chassis air flow.

If you can find this older version of the Corsair H60  it is 152mm long as opposed to the 155mm length of the (2018) version.

The Corsair H60 from 2018 does definitely fit into the Aurora R6 Case. I did it myself.

Since you were expecting a 4000 rpm fan, you must not have reviewed the documentation very well. Did you remember to remove the protective plastic cover from the pre-applied thermal paste on the water block cold plate?

Yes, it's also been my experience that a video encode/re-encode (at end of video-editing) will run all cores up to 100% (similar to running Prime95). It puts max stress on cooling system. I've done it many times on my Aurora-R1 and Aurora-R6 ... and their (Dell-OEM Asetek clone) liquid-coolers always manage to keep all cores under 70c . CPUID's HW-Monitor is a nice monitoring tool.

Personally, I would have used a Dell/OEM (Asetek clone) liquid-cooler (new or gently used "working pull"). Just easier with proprietary connections, mountings, again works with Alienware Command Center, etc. Basically ... returns to factory shipped config.

Others have mentioned good ideas above. 

If you are saying neither liquid-cooler has ever worked ... almost sounds like both were not installed properly or maybe something is preventing proper install (like neither was sitting completely flat against Intel processor). There is also possible thermal paste issues, wiring trouble, or even bad or mis-configured thermal control software.

Prime 95 is my preferred method to test CPU cooling, with small FFT selection for maximum heat production.

You have to monitor the CPU temperature when running it, and be ready to stop the torture test, if you suspect a cooling issue.

Prime95 

If you cannot stay below 90 Celsius you either have an improper installation of the cooler, a cooler that is to low performance for the power consumption of the chip and it's resulting TDP, or lack of airflow.

You can check power consumption etc with HWInfo

Thanks everybody, lots of feedback which is great, so instead of posting lot's of different answers:

1 - I saw that the H60 fan max was around 1700, I had simply expected higher speeds given the size of the radiator being almost identical to the stock part.  And yes, I removed the plastic protector.

2 - The pump is seated correctly.

3 - The rad does not fit in the rad case, regardless of whether it fits others, unless you used a hammer and a bucket of lube. The width of the rad case is exactly the same as the width of the H60 rad, give or take a fraction of a mm. I managed to get it in about 11mm before giving up and pushing it back out.

4 - The airflow is good, despite the fact that I use my R6 like a rack. The ambient in the studio is 16/17deg, I have a push pull set up with a 3rd fan behind the 2 mounted on the rad. Before I lifted the stock cooler, the fan grills and rad were spotless. The tower when intact had factory airflow.

5 - The CPU idles at 50/60 with no cooler attached. The fact that it idles at 50 with a cooler attached and the rad fan at 100% does not show the cooler is working. This R6 CPU should idle at at least 40deg. It used to idle at 33deg including Core #0 which is generally the first to spike.

6 - Before I lifted the stock part, the temperature of the CPU had the fans blowing at full speed, the majority of the time. There is one game on this rig, Minecraft. When running, the CPU sits at between 93 and 100deg on all cores and wont come down until the game is turned off. Fitting the new cooler made no difference. This proc should not be running so hot, for so long, with any normal program....surely? The sound of the fans when at full tilt sound like an aeroplane getting ready to take off! Front and back fans at over 4000rpm.

7 - In my original post, a couple of months ago, I included the thermal imaging of the stock pump, which showed 1 hot and 1 cold pipe. I assumed this meant the pump was working, but the forum disagreed. The thermals again of this pump show that there is a hot and cold line. I can watch the heat travel on start up, so it would seem that the impeller is working (I do not think it is simple convection as the heat travel's too fast).

Anyway, thanks for the feedback everybody. I'll keep working on it.

Peace

D

Or a faulty temp sensor?

I'll try out Prime95.

Cheers

D

When you say you are using it like a rack, do you mean it is laying on it's side?

If that is the way you have it, that will not work with liquid cooling. Liquid cooling needs to be upright.

If you are going to run you rig 'de-lidded' and open-sided, you might as well run a 360mm radiator on top, or look at some other external radiator solution.

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@Dirjampa wrote:

Or a faulty temp sensor?

 

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Which one? All of them? Unlikely.

For the Intel i7-7700k in my Aurora-R6, CPUID's HW-Monitor shows 

Package
Cores 1-4
HD-Graphics 630

and all about the same temp for each at any given time.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/cpu-package-temps.3630316/