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Reliability of packaged, closed loop cooling systems

B

BBMW

n00b
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Sep 14, 2010
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When I build a system, I generaly don't screw with it too much after it's done. Air coolers, if nothing else, tend to live forever.

The packaged, closed loop systems (think Corsair H50 and it's descendants) have been around a while now. How have they been holding up? I worry about leakage/evaporation over the long term. Has this been a problem?

In general, have these units been holding up?
 
If you don't want to mess around with it, go with air coolers. The cost/performance ratio of air coolers is significantly better than CLCs, and pretty much the only advantage of CLCs over air coolers is ease of installation and easy access to RAM/motherboard/CPU after installation. If you don't mess around with a system after it's built, then that advantage is moot for you, and pumps will fail after a period of time, necessitating a full replacement. When a fan fails on the air cooler, you just replace the fan.
 
I knew that. The main thing I like about the CLCs is that they take up so much less space in the case (leaving better airflow for everything else, and making access easier if I do have do do anything in there), and they put less stress on the mobo. I might spend the extra bucks for that, but I don't want to add unreliability to the system.
 
I have never seen reports of motherboard failures or cracking due to too heavy air coolers, and your case design matters a lot more in terms of general airflow than the cooler used.
 
Tsumi said:
I have never seen reports of motherboard failures or cracking due to too heavy air coolers, and your case design matters a lot more in terms of general airflow than the cooler used.
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Indeed, also the HS has a fan on it pulling/pushing air to the exhaust, it's not like a solid metal plate blocking airflow.

Another thing you should think about with these types of coolers is that of noise, while they might cool close to that of some higher end HS's, they do it with often times far, far more noise, which is why I do not think of reviews putting a H80 vs some HS very fair, as they look at temps most of the time, and the few reviews that show sound levels, the H80 etc are close to twice as loud as the HS. All in one coolers I only think of when small systems are being built, as you can get tower cooler performance, when the case will not fit a tower cooler.
 
Tsumi said:
If you don't want to mess around with it, go with air coolers. The cost/performance ratio of air coolers is significantly better than CLCs, and pretty much the only advantage of CLCs over air coolers is ease of installation and easy access to RAM/motherboard/CPU after installation. If you don't mess around with a system after it's built, then that advantage is moot for you, and pumps will fail after a period of time, necessitating a full replacement. When a fan fails on the air cooler, you just replace the fan.
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How so? When using the same fans my H60 out-performed my Venomous X. I would say that it performed very well for the price.

People get these bad impressions of these coolers due to shitty reviews that use a different fan on each cooler.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
People get these bad impressions of these coolers due to shitty reviews that use a different fan on each cooler.
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Bingo.

I am running a H100 in my home server 24/7 for the last 8 months...and not one hiccup. This is a great alternative to stock and typical air cooled solutions.
 
The higher end HSF's work just as well but man theyre huge and eat up a lot of room in your case not to mention a couple RAM slots (and PCIE slots depending on the cooler). And while I know there are no wide spread reports of motherboards cracking, I move my rig around a lot because Im always tinkering with it, adding case fans and stuff like that and one slight little drop and I dont like the odds of my motherboard not being damaged by the 20 pound chunk of metal Ive got dangling from it.

A CLC is awfully nice that I can move my case around and not have to worry about that. I also dont have to use low profile RAM and I have access to all my RAM slots.

The noise is a real issue though. On high settings my H100 is very loud. Dont think I could live with it. I keep it on medium during stress testing and with my 8150 I ran out of CPU headroom before my H100 ran out of cooling so High is not necessarily needed. Currently I keep it set to low for 24/7 use and its quieter than my case fans and keeps my temps in the low 40's during gaming.

As for durability, the pump is the only thing you have to worry about and I havent seen any reports of pump failure aside from the DOA units that everybody can get. Id feel confident that I should get 3 years out of my H100 pump which would be plenty for me as I doubt Ill have it that long anyway considering Im an upgrade junkie. I mean the pump isnt that many moving parts so I should think it would last a good few years.
 
I look at the number of complaints and problems found searching the web. I see more with CLC than air coolers and Corsair definitely has more than anyone else.
 
doyll said:
I look at the number of complaints and problems found searching the web. I see more with CLC than air coolers and Corsair definitely has more than anyone else.
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Yeah but take out the ones about the noisy pumps they had when they first released the H series and I bet that number goes down drastically. I made sure I bought one from a much newer lot number and Ive got a silent running pump.

I havent seen many reports of dying pumps at all aside from the noise issues.
 
The H series was made by Asetek until the H100i came around, which is a Cool-IT made unit. The H100i is the one appearing to be problematic, like most Cool-IT units.
 
NiHiL8 said:
The H series was made by Asetek until the H100i came around, which is a Cool-IT made unit. The H100i is the one appearing to be problematic, like most Cool-IT units.
Click to expand...

Recently Cool-it don't like to support their customer when something happen.
 
I would agree with the first few posters, if you want hassle free, go air. I don't agree with some of the others though because I have my h80 set to low, keeps the cpu quiet and is dead silent. I replace the cooler roughly every 2 years whether or not it will need it, just to hopefully prevent any future issues. I just recently (over xmas) changed out my 620 with the current h80. Its dead quiet, has a warranty and keeps thing cool. Took about an hour to change out.
 
NiHiL8 said:
The H series was made by Asetek until the H100i came around, which is a Cool-IT made unit. The H100i is the one appearing to be problematic, like most Cool-IT units.
Click to expand...

No, the H60, H80, and H100 are all made by cool-it.

The H50, 40, and 70 are made by asetek.

Round pump=asetek
square pump=coolit
 
Now that I looked at the pump unit myself, I noticed my mistake on that. Thanks for pointing it out.
 
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