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Question about my first watercooling setup

H

Hardball

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 24, 2002
Messages
175
Putting a new rig together and I will be using a Swiftech H220 AIO in an NZXT Phantom 530 case. The radiator on the H220 has the reservoir with a fill port on one end of the radiator. One side (the bottom?) of the rad is flat and level, while the other side has the reservoir and fill port which is at a 90 degree to the rad and sticks up about 1/2 " higher on that end of the rad.

My question is can the radiator be mounted with either side facing down? I will be mounting it at the top of the case and many of the Youtube videos regarding the installation of this H220 shows the rad with the reservoir and fill port facing down, which is how I would like to mount it. Looking around Swiftech's site, I saw a post where it suggests that you must have the rad facing fill-port up. I also emailed Swiftech and got the following response regarding this question,

"Yes, it does make a difference. You really can’t install these with the fill-port facing down. The reason for this is that the reservoir is designed to work as an air trap. With the fill-port facing down it’s not possible for the reservoir to do its job in that way. So any air that gets into the loop via evaporation will end up in the pump."

Does anyone here have experience with the H220, or similar AIO's, and can verify that it needs to be mounted fill-port up only?
Thanks.
 
How would you fill it with liquid when it's upside down? Wouldn't you had to unplug everything and then flip your case over to fill it?
 
This unit only requires refilling about once every 3 years under normal use. If you decide to expand the system and add another loop or something, then you would need to refill sooner. The H220 is kind of a hybrid of sorts, more than a standard AIO, but less than a full custom watercooling setup.
 
It's a full custom watercooling setup that comes pre-assembled and pre-filled.
 
Tsumi - do you have any suggestions regarding my original question of the radiator orientation?
 
You have to treat it as any other custom system. That means fill port on top.
 
Got the H220 installed, but getting high idle temps on the 3570k according to the bios. It is showing a cpu temp of 52-55c and that is at idle. I have removed and remounted 3-4 times now and reapplied the Noctua NT-H1 each time, but get the same temps. The ambient temp is about 25c.

I am also getting a cpu fan error message on the bios splash screen at startup. The cpu block/pump from the H220 is plugged into the Cpu Fan header on the Asus P8Z77-V Pro as called for in the instructions, but there is no reading in the bios for the cpu fan header, just an N/A. With an AIO water cooler like this H220, is there supposed to be an rpm reading for the pump displayed from the cpu fan header that it is plugged into?
Is there a chance that the pump on the H220 is not even working? Would having just the water block attached to the cpu, without the pump working. result in the temps I am getting, without actually frying the cpu?
 
I doubt the N/A is normal. It should display an RPM number if the pump is working correctly.

If the pump really isn't working, the CPU temperature should rise over time. Keep in mind that in the bios, it's sitting at full voltage rather than at idle voltage. Also, the TIM on Ivy Bridge CPUs can cause large variances in temp.
 
I installed RealTemp yesterday to try and rule out an inaccurate temp reading from the bios, but RealTemp reports the temps at 61-65c at idle, so I think the pump was DOA from the start. Also, there is no noise or vibration from the pump itself while it's on, and the rad is cool to the touch after an hour of running.
 
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