Corsair Hydro H100i V2 Advice

[FaviousM]

Howdy all, have a couple of questions on the Corsair Hydro H100i V2. I installed it last night on my MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon (which has a 7700k in it) and noticed two things that seem off to me.



Firstly, the backplate was extremely loose (I actually had to get someone to hold it in while I attached the pump) I’ve seen two lines of thought on forums about it, some people think it’s fine because it tightens up but others think it’s an issue an you need to add washers. What makes me think it’s an issue in my case is that my temps have gone from around 30 at idle to around 40 (and the highs are around 10 degree higher than before as well), which to me seems too big a jump for it to be normal behaviour, having said that I had a Noctua D14 in it before, I went for an AIO more for aesthetic reasons than anything. I plan on disconnecting the pump and redoing the TIM tonight anyway, should I add washers while I’m at it?



Secondly, I have it mounted on the front of my case as in an intake and instead of the supplied fans, I used a pair of Cooler Master Masterfan 120 RGBs however they seem to be really loud even on the quiet profile in Corsair link so my plan is to put in a couple of 140mm Noctuas that I have (sacrificing style for silence hopefully) my question is, is it OK for me to attach these to a motherboard header rather than the splitter that’s attached to the Hydro? I much prefer using the MSI Bios for fan control



Thanks for any advice

 

[JalYt_Justin]

H100i v2 is a 240mm radiator, you can't fit 140mm Noctua's on it unless you plan on doing some custom modding to somehow make it work.

As far as I know, the backplate shouldn't be too much of a huge problem as long as the coldplate is making full contact with the CPU. It couldn't hurt to add washers and make sure it's tight, however.

 

[FaviousM]

H100i v2 is a 240mm radiator, you can't fit 140mm Noctua's on it unless you plan on doing some custom modding to somehow make it work.

As far as I know, the backplate shouldn't be too much of a huge problem as long as the coldplate is making full contact with the CPU. It couldn't hurt to add washers and make sure it's tight, however.

The way the front of the case works is I can mount the rad on the back of the front panel using the 120 mounts and the fans on the front using the 140 mounts. (It's a fractal design focus g if you're curious)

 

[JalYt_Justin]

H100i v2 is a 240mm radiator, you can't fit 140mm Noctua's on it unless you plan on doing some custom modding to somehow make it work.

As far as I know, the backplate shouldn't be too much of a huge problem as long as the coldplate is making full contact with the CPU. It couldn't hurt to add washers and make sure it's tight, however.

The way the front of the case works is I can mount the rad on the back of the front panel using the 120 mounts and the fans on the front using the 140 mounts. (It's a fractal design focus g if you're curious)

I suppose that works then. As said before, adding washers to make sure the backplate is properly secured can't hurt. Just be sure that the coldplate is actually touching the CPU IHS fully. For future reference, idle temps don't mean much and they can vary wildly, all that matters is load temps. Acceptable load temps is below 75C (personal preference, some say as long as it doesn't thermal throttle, which is 80+C).

 

[FaviousM]

H100i v2 is a 240mm radiator, you can't fit 140mm Noctua's on it unless you plan on doing some custom modding to somehow make it work.

As far as I know, the backplate shouldn't be too much of a huge problem as long as the coldplate is making full contact with the CPU. It couldn't hurt to add washers and make sure it's tight, however.

The way the front of the case works is I can mount the rad on the back of the front panel using the 120 mounts and the fans on the front using the 140 mounts. (It's a fractal design focus g if you're curious)

I suppose that works then. As said before, adding washers to make sure the backplate is properly secured can't hurt. Just be sure that the coldplate is actually touching the CPU IHS fully. For future reference, idle temps don't mean much and they can vary wildly, all that matters is load temps. Acceptable load temps is below 75C (personal preference, some say as long as it doesn't thermal throttle, which is 80+C).

So it looks like the backplate looseness was the issue... Disconnected the pump and this is what the thermal compound looked like

So I re-applied thermal paste, added washers to the backplate , swapped out the front fans for my noctuas so now it's back to being quite and the temps are back down to around 30/32 idle and I hit around 70 on a ZCPU stress test in performance mode...