AIO Cooler Low on Liquid?

[Reckoner89]

I have been having temperature issues with my PC. After booting up, the idle temps will be in the 30's but after any usage the idle temps will hover around 40-50. Load temps are terrible. Temps will jump to 80's right away and after several minutes will eventually hit 100. I am using a Corsair h100i on an i7 6700k at stock speeds. Voltage under load is <1.3 so I figure it must be the cooler. Last night I took the cooler off and did a thorough cleaning and new application of thermal paste. After reinstalling everything I booted up and ran prime95 and was happy to see my temps peak at 69 after a few minutes...but then a couple minutes later it jumps back up to the 90's (and probably would have gone into the 100's if I left prime95 running) so clearly a cleaning and new thermal paste didn't do the trick.

When I took the h100i out it felt light and sounded like there was barely any liquid inside. I might be completely wrong but when I bought the cooler 2 years ago I feel like I remember being able to feel/hear the liquid sloshing around inside. So can the liquid inside an AIO somehow diminish? it's either that or the pump isn't working but it sounded like it was working when I booted up the PC.

Either way it has to be the cooler right? I want to switch to an air cooler but I don't want to waste my money if it's something else. What else could cause such high temps if not the cooler?

 

[jay32267]

I tend to agree with you. I think it has to be the cooler. As you said, what else could it be?

....as far as the liquid....unfortunately I'm not familiar with your cooler....but being you aren't overclocking...I think I might switch to air.

 

[ko888]

The only way to hear a sloshing sound is if that cooler has air trapped in the loop. Air inside of a closed loop AIO cooler is not a good sign and would indicate a leak. Air bubbles in the loop could block flow of coolant.

 

[Reckoner89]

Well ideally I'd like to do a mild OC to 4.4 ghz. I had my CPU at 4.4 previously but put it back to stock because of said temperature issues. It didn't make a difference though as I'm still seeing 90-100 under load.

 

[Reckoner89]

Alright I pulled the trigger on the Noctua NH-D15S. Hopefully that's the end of these high temps. If not then I have no idea what's wrong.

 

[Reckoner89]

Of course now that I've ordered a new cooler my CPU all of a sudden doesn't go above 65 degrees under 100% load for the last 10 minutes. And surely once I return the noctua the temps will go back to 100. This system drives me freaking nuts!

 

[theonerm2]

Maybe the pump is beginning to fail. Perhaps it works good sometimes but not other times. A good air cooler is better for reliability.

 

[Reckoner89]

Yeah that seems like the most likely scenario. Just seems odd that after weeks of not being able to do anything CPU intensive without going above 90 degrees, the day I order a new cooler I don't see it go above 70 after an hour of stress testing.