CPU Overheating And Case Fans Not Spinning

janika2507

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Jan 13, 2018
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The other day while gaming I noticed very quick freezes. It made me believe that either something is under heavy load or it's throttling because of high temperatures and voilà!

I bought this PC in 2014 and all I ever did was remove the dust from time to time and replace the thermal paste maybe once. That is probably not enough maintenance. I had overheating problems maybe a year ago. I don't know what happened then but it resolved itself. Since then I have not been monitoring the temperatures. After googling a bit I thought that maybe my water cooling rig is not working because an air bubble is trapped somewhere inside the pump and so that's what I did:

■ I placed the whole case on its side overnight.
■ Next day I couldn't turn it on using my power button. Funny enough I noticed an orange glowing power on button on my motherboard. Using it booted my PC like normal.
■ First the temps were around 35°C. Then they rose to 60°C idle and finally 99°C when I started up a game. They never fell back down even after shutting down the game.
■ So I thought it's time for dusting again. I unplugged the GPU and cleaned it with my airbrush. I then unscrewed the radiator and the water pump from the CPU. However, I couldn't find the fan connection to the motherboard to unplug it and I just cleaned the whole PC case with the radiator still in.
■ I replaced the thermal paste and screwed everything back in. While opening and closing the case I noticed that the LED strips were not working. The one on the bottom of the case seemed to have a bad contact and the one on the top side barely glowed at all but it DID glow.
■ This is when I noticed none of my fans working. The only two that were still spinning are the ones on top of the H100i radiator.
■ Another thing I seem to have in common with other owners of the H100i is the rattling sound (of the pump maybe) that goes away if you tilt the case just a little bit. This sound is usually never there.

So here I am. While googling I noticed that a case is supposed to have airflow in one direction. From the photos that are in that album, can you tell if my fans are set up the right way at all? Front fans sucking the air inward, the rear fan pushing the air out of the case and the H100i radiator is on the upper side with fans ontop of it blowing the air out of the case.
 
Solution
None of your fans are spinning, and they are connected to a controller? Try connecting one of them to a motherboad fan header... you can do that with the computer running if you want, see if anything happens. the overheating is quite odd... air bubbles in the AIO won't bother it to much, they work them selves out over time.
if corsair link says your pump is not slowing down then perhaps you have massive blockage in your radiator due to corrosion. you definitely need to try a cheap cpu cooler on there. Gotta plug those fans in elsewhere, and try a different cooler. Even if you have zero case fans, your CPU should not hit 99c very easily...

glytch5

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Mar 22, 2017
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um.... wow that quite a post.
So lemme break this down:
you have a corsair AIO cooler, and at one point in the passed you had thermal problem.. but they went away. Now they are back. You tried cleaning up everything, and the computer just won't boot up... is that right?

Where is your Corsair pump plug connected to? Is it hooked up to your CPU fan header? Or just a fan header? If its plugged into your CPU header... your computer may not be starting because the pump isn't spinning properly. The little pumps sounds... could be air, could be the pump dying. Mine is just about silent.

Are you using thermal paste? I am sure you are... just figured i'de ask. Did you try putting on the stock cooler?

Okay final question: are you overclocking that CPU? If its an older rig that was over clocked pretty good, and now it won't post it could need a little more voltage... over time as they get older, overclocks will degrade a little and become unstable sometimes.
 

janika2507

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Jan 13, 2018
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First of all a big thank you for reading such a huge post!

Yeah I had an overheating problem maybe a year ago. I stopped using my desktop for a while and when I came back everything was fine. So I have no idea what was wrong and what fixed it. It might be a completely different thing this time. I remember reading at some point that water cooling systems can sometimes get bubbles in the system and that made me think it was the pump that was making this noise however after listening to an open case I think it's one of the three GPU fans that has loosened up and since my corsair fans are spinning and the software says that the pump is spinning as well makes me think that it's not the issue at all.

Now after putting the PC case on it's side overnight to get rid of that "bubble" I suddenly couldn't boot my PC with the power on button AND my case fans (all FOUR of them) stopped working. I am currently writing to you using my desktop because I still can boot it with the power on button that's on the motherboard (Z97X Gaming7). All of this kinda makes sense why my CPU is overheating - THERE IS NO AIRFLOW IN THE CASE. Why that is I have no idea. All my fans are connected to this small controller board with three-pin connectors. Is this thing dead? Did some cable disconnect as I was cleaning? Is my power supply broken?

I have no idea. This was a prebuilt PC and I have pretty much no idea. All I did since the problem is cleaning the excess dust, reapplying thermal paste and trying to connect the fans to the motherboard directly. No change so far.

Yes I have the K version of the CPU and I had it at 4.3Ghz. First thing I did since overheating is reduce it to 3.5Ghz through BIOS. It still eventually goes from 35°C to 99°C in about 30 minutes.

BTW I edited my original post to include a link to an imgur album.
 

glytch5

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Mar 22, 2017
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None of your fans are spinning, and they are connected to a controller? Try connecting one of them to a motherboad fan header... you can do that with the computer running if you want, see if anything happens. the overheating is quite odd... air bubbles in the AIO won't bother it to much, they work them selves out over time.
if corsair link says your pump is not slowing down then perhaps you have massive blockage in your radiator due to corrosion. you definitely need to try a cheap cpu cooler on there. Gotta plug those fans in elsewhere, and try a different cooler. Even if you have zero case fans, your CPU should not hit 99c very easily...
 
Solution

janika2507

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Jan 13, 2018
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Yup. I managed to get my fans to work again and my CPU temps have not changed at all. I'll get myself the same cooler I guess. Is there a way of preventing bacteria and corrosion or do closed loops usually die this fast? I had this whole build since 2014.

EDIT: Got myself the new version of the same cooler (Corsair H100i V2) and the temperatures are back to normal (35°C at 3.5GHz).
 

glytch5

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Mar 22, 2017
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Very good!
no there is not much you can do... they are not designed to be user serviceable... though some people have opened them. It would be an adventure you could try on your old unit!

The Corsair models have like a 4 or 5 year warranty and they are real good about it... they generally last a good long time. I'm glad you got it going. You may be able to re purpose that radiator in the future... or at least watch videos on how to open up the pump and try to fix it.

They fill them with coolant that has anti microbial and corrosion protection in it.. but coolant does not last forever... and sometimes goes bad prematurely.