Water Cooler - Push or pull?

[BlakeWilliams 6]

Hi There!

 

I recently installed a Corsair H110 onto my rig and have it pushing hot air out of the top. Should it be pulling cool air into the CPU? 

 

I also just recently installed ASUS's AISuite 3 and did its 4 way optimization. It got my rig up to 4.8 - which I thought was impressive. However, the cpu fan profile shot right up, as if it wasn't cooling at all. In fact - if I go into the fan tabs, my cpu fan doesn't even have a profile, like the other fans do. 

 

When I loaded FSX - and then something intensive - like the PMDG 777, FSX crashes. I uninstalled AISuite and it runs fine and what appears to be at around 4.2 from just doing the auto performance from within the bios. 

 

Any thoughts on whats going on?

 

Thank you !

[z06z33 763]

I have 4 fans on my h110 in a push pull setup which dropped my temps by another 4c also I have my h110 externally mounted the reason I did this was is it provides better cooling as it get clean air and it doesn't blow hot air into the case.

[BlakeWilliams 6]

Currently I have just have the two fans that came with the water cooler. So - should I have those fan bringing cool air to cpu - or pushing hot air away?

[SolRayz 392]

Me too, running push/pull on my H100i. I have air pushing out in my setup.

[martin-w 3,234]

I recently installed a Corsair H110 onto my rig and have it pushing hot air out of the top. Should it be pulling cool air into the CPU?

If your fans blow cool air through the rad, they will be feeding warm air into the case. You will get cooler CPU temps by a couple of degrees, but at the expense of higher GPU and MB temp.

 

I would have them exhausting through the rad. We don't really want the motherboard VRM's warmer than they need to be.

 

 

I also just recently installed ASUS's AISuite 3 and did its 4 way optimization. It got my rig up to 4.8 - which I thought was impressive. However, the cpu fan profile shot right up, as if it wasn't cooling at all. In fact - if I go into the fan tabs, my cpu fan doesn't even have a profile, like the other fans do.

 

 

 

When I loaded FSX - and then something intensive - like the PMDG 777, FSX crashes. I uninstalled AISuite and it runs fine and what appears to be at around 4.2 from just doing the auto performance from within the bios.

 

 

 

Any thoughts on whats going on?

 

 

4.8 you say, what CPU temp in core temp or real temp resulted under load?

 

Sounds like your CPU is very hot and the fans are thus at max. In addition, some find fan xpert two a bit finicky. It's working fine for me though, but I too did experience no CPU fan profile once. Not an issue for me, as my NH-D14 is very quiet even at full RPM.

 

Make sure you have the latest AiSuite and fan Xpert2.

 

Auto performance, from within the bios is the Asus TPU function. It's a quick and easy overclock without any prior auto stress testing.

[pmanhart 176]

The best overall configuration would be to have the fans mounted to they are pulling air through the radiator and out of the case. Otherwise, like Martin stated, you are trading lower CPU temps for higher MB, RAM and GPU temps; not a good enough tradeoff.

 

Think of it like this - if mounted on the top of a case, the fans are mounted directly to the case with the radiator underneath them, the fans are blowing air out of the top of the case and pulling air through the radiator.

 

If you're CPU temps are still spiking, check to make sure you have enough fans pulling air in through the front or that any filters aren't filled with dirt. If it isn't an airflow or dirt/dust issue, I would probably invest in another tube of good thermal compound and remount your heatsink/pump that's on top of the CPU. When pulling it off, try and pull it straight off and see if the thermal compound that was there was evenly distributed and you had a good "mate" between the sink and CPU. If you have some areas that are gooped up and some that are not, chances are the installation went bad previously. Clean all the old compound off using lint free cloth, q-tips and isopropyl alcohol making sure not to get any on the MB or around the socker and start again with a fresh tube, making sure that the mounts in the MB holes are properly secured and ready to receive the sink mounts.

 

EDIT: I'm not sure what type of CPU you are using, but if it's Ivy Bridge or later, then getting any overclock over 4.5 usually involves a large amount of Vcore, which is what will be driving your temps sky-high. In all the overclocking that I've experienced and read about on the various hardware forums over the interwebs, there are quicky diminishing returns from 4.5 on up on Ivy Bridge and newer Intel CPUs.

[ryanbatc 12,813]

Agreed^ download CPU-Z and read out your vcore. I can't recall what max is on haswell but sone if these other guys should know.

[pmanhart 176]

Agreed^ download CPU-Z and read out your vcore. I can't recall what max is on haswell but sone if these other guys should know.

 

 

I believe max recommended Vcore is 1.4V, but from what I've read, 1.4V turns the CPU into a little square of magma and requires a really high-performance water-cooling setup and/or delidding the stock heat-spreader in addition to the high perf water cooler.

 

From what I've read, 1.3V seems to be the max anyone recommends for 24/7 overclocks, with anything above that not recommended, unless you leave the CPU the ability to throttle down and reduce the voltage when idle.