Pump Sound Effect Download

[Mertie Oldow]

HighI have just installed my new H60 and have noticed the pump seems to be noisy. Well, I think it is noisy, I have nothing to compare it to since this is my first water cooling system. The noise sounds similar to a hard drive accessing data, if you know what I mean by that. The loudness seems excessive, but this is without the loud stock AMD cooling fan and a second fan that the H60 took the place of.

If this is the normal noise, that is fine, I will just have to get use to it. I just do not know if it is normal or not since this is my first water cooling kit and there are not many videos of the H60 yet.

Try holding the radiator above the pump while its running and gently tap on the pump with your finger. This may force air out of the pump which could be causing the noise. If there is no improvement, and the noise is loud enough to be bothersome, then lets get the unit replaced!

I just have one last question. You mention if the noise bothers me to get a RMA. Is the noise a cause of concern that the pump will fail? I have not seen any problems with the system keeping my CPU cooler than the stock cooler. Besides the noise, everything works great and if I can live with the noise of the stock cooler at full speed while playing games, I can live with the pump noise. I was just worried since, like I said, this is my first water cooled system and am not sure how it should sound.

Sorry to revive a old topic, but i believe its a general fault with the h60 series, since im sitting here in Denmark with that exact same problem, i have this constant noise that sounds like something is chewing data hard on a old IDE drive , and i believe its comming from the pump, tried as suggested , no help.

Sorry, forgot to post an update months ago. After about a week or so, the sound went away and there have not been any problems with temperature or noise. It works the way it should. So my advice is give it a bit if yours is new. It you have had it a while and you can not stand the noise, I guess get a RMA.

Plugged it into the computer yesterday, the thing is my computer run 24/7 almost, i let it run over night, so if its adjusting time it needs, it will have that until the store has ordered a new one home for me, usually it shouldnt say anything at all, it should be silent.

I have no doubt there is something wrong with it, it sounds exactly like yesterday, still the same annoying sounds that sound like a old IDE or the first SATA drives when they were chewing on alot of data or when you were defragging them.

I find my self often thinking " what are my hdd" working on now, before I remember that it is the cooling pump. I tried to top on it with my finger. Took out the radiator, and "shook" it from left to right a few times, but the noise is still there.

I had same problem with mine and still have if run at 100% speed. Mine is connected to the power fan socket on board and in BIOS I set the power fan speed to 90% which gives approx 3800 RPM instead of 4000+rpm. This has removed all noise from pump and made no difference to temperatures all.

I can't offer any help (I could use some myself), but I CAN confirm grimvarg's exact results. Right now I have a pair of books under one side of my tower case, which tilts it about 15-20 degrees to the left. This stops the VERY annoying pump noise. When I remove the books and return the case to an upright position, the pump noise resumes after a few seconds. It's very loud and distracting, and it happens with enough of the people in this forum that I wonder if Corsair tested the unit in the most likely position: a tower case will have the motherboard vertical and therefore the pump will also be oriented perpendicular to the floor.

On a brighter note, the cooler seems to be performing its intended function correctly. I seem to have dropped about 19 degrees C when playing Civilization 5, which seems to work all 4 cores of the CPU for some reason.

By reducing the fan speed to 90% I get a almost constant 3800 rpm with absolutely no noise and has been running like this for a long time now. The voltage has only decreased to 11 volt. This should not do any harm to pump motor as within normal % tolerance for most motors.

curiousclive, very interesting, but now I'm curious, Clive, a few questions. Also, some thoughts about the cause of pump noise, which I am not stating as facts, but just offering ideas and opinions about this topic.

Regarding the pump creating air bubbles due to excessive RPM; I'm wondering, can the motion of an object that is completely surrounded in water, with no source of air near it, cause bubbles to be produced? I realized that I don't really know if this happens or not. While I believe that a gas (oxygen, nitrogen, etc, or just air) is said to be dissolved in a liquid, does the force of a quickly spinning propeller or pump impeller force the gas out of the liquid, into bubbles? Imagine the pump chamber, containing liquid and the impeller, it has no air pockets or bubbles in it and no other air source. But the motion of the impeller somehow creates bubbles? I'm not sure that this actually happens, or cannot happen. My point, finally, is that it may not be bubbles that is causing the noise.

How about mechanical noise from the pump? A bad bearing or mounting point, out of tolerance or balance impeller that rattles around and causes noise. A post in this thread mentioned moving the radiator so the tubes were taught, and then the pump became silent. That sounds to me more like a vibration was stopped or damped by the tension on the pump from the tubes, rather than bubbles immediately dispersing and disappearing. If the tension on the pump was released, and the noise returned, that again would seem to be a vibration IMO.

My H60's (two) pumps do not make noise that is louder than the PC's fans, I can hear a faint sound from them if I listen very closely to the pump, and they are mounted in the usual way in a PC case. They both run at over 4200 RPM.

I wonder if there is a correlation between the radiator position relative to the pump, and noise. My radiator is about on the same level as the pump, not completely above it or below, mounted vertically on the rear case vent.

Pump noise is bad, given that the pump can be quiet. We know they can be quiet, so excessive noise is an issue regardless of source. I'm leaning towards a vibration or resonance as the noise source in some cases, rather than bubbles. Actually, what does "bubble noise" sound like?

1. I use an amp meter to check readings by connecting in series with + wire of pump (I used a modified fan extension lead with + wire cut so can connect meter probes in series as I wanted to see if reducing voltage would increase load on pump). I cannot remember actual readings now but noticed that amps increased slightly when pump RPM reached Approx 2000rpm. At 3000rpm could not detect any difference in reading from 4200rpm.

2. I agree with you that I cannot be certain speed causes air bubbles it was just my impression. Plus corsair always suggesting to tap pump or move radiator about to remove air bubbles when people complain of same HDD type noise. So that is where my impression of speed stirring up air resulting in bubbles comes from. Also it is unlikely that system is totally full of liquid without any air space left.

I also had a H50 before updating to H60 and fitting the H50 into my sister's computer. The pump speed on H50 connected to chassis_fan set with QFan disabled ( as only option for speed control on my sisters computer so cannot say if it running at 100% or not. But was connect to power_fan on my comp set at 100%, but cannot remember what speed that gave) is approx 1450rpm (1/3 speed of H60 pump) with very good temp control also, and never had this noise problem in either my machine or my sisters. So seems speed of pump is not that important or not all 'H' series cooler pumps are set to same speed range.

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