Suggestions for an all in one CPU water cooling solution other than Corsair?

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Message 1922201 - Posted: 2 Mar 2018, 21:57:52 UTC
Last modified: 2 Mar 2018, 22:12:06 UTC

I've been moving some hardware around in the last couple days - I decided to depreciate my new 1080Ti Hydro out of my AtomAnt rig, and toss it into the Lotsacores one to go along with the 1080 FTW and the 980Ti Hydro, and toss a 980Ti into the Atom instead. One thing about the Lotsacores rig that I'm not all that happy about is the CPU core temps are nowadays running between 48 and 63*, up about 10-15 since I built it over a year ago. I've tried the normal cleaning, and was considering reapplying the new TIM, but instead was considering water cooling both procs instead if I was going to be pulling it apart anyways.

So, I was looking again at the Corsair H110i's, as that is the one that Ray Hinchliffe has said was still the one to get, but when I went to their site, I saw they now have a 3 fan H150i PRO RGB model (bigger is better, esp for Xeons, right? *grins*), and was trying to determine if was made by the same company that made the H110i. I went into their forum, and did a search for Ray and that model, and the first (unrelated) post I pulled up showed something that really shocked me - he has been banned, probably permanently, from their forum. Here are the last few posts from the last thread he was active on about 6 months ago for those who would like a synopsis of what happened, as well as detailing some of the outstanding issues with their software. The first ones are from those who support and appreciated him, and the last was from some forum mucky muck at Corsair (who then locked the thread):


Yes it is quite a shock. The recently released CLCP 4.9.0.57 and CLCP firmware 0.3.153 have some SERIOUS problems - Buss access locking totally screwed up, CLCP not retaining last settings and dropping into demo "rainbow more", inability to read more than 16 cores, temperature probe polling, driver signing problems, etc. Ray and SIV were the only reason I even bought a CLCP and all of my HD-RGB fans. If he is really banned long term then I suspect that continued development of SIV to control Corsair Link products will stop. In this case I will not be purchasing any more Corsair products. Link and the support firmware are a huge mess. Without Red Ray to figure out all of the problems and the work arounds in SIV, the only alternative is to depend on Corsair's software. I will take a pass on that. YMMV.

Whatever happens, good luck to all!



Originally Posted by SpeedyV
Ray and SIV were the only reason I even bought a CLCP and all of my HD-RGB fans.


This all seems so strange and wrong, especially after all Ray's done for the Corsair devices solution. I too bought a CLCP because of the level of control and integration that he's brought to the Corsair H/W with SIV. I really hope he gets unbanned here, as he is so incredibly helpful and knowledgeable, and clearly passionate about the customer.

Historically H/W-centric companies don't do as well in the S/W realm, because it's not as important an investment area - it most cases the associated S/W is usually more of an afterthought. This clearly appears to be the case with Corsair.

Case in point, look at the ongoing quality issues with CL and the CLCP. I came to this forum a little over a month ago because in my new build a sleep/wake cycle would cause all the sensors to get duplicated each time in CL (when CL didn't crash, that is). I discovered SIV, and how it could replace multiple apps I have in terms of overall system sensor monitoring (Ray's LCD Panels are epic).

Then I ended up buying a CLCP, because I could tie my fans to other devices in the system (coolant temperature, GPU temperature, ambient case temperature, etc.) Great! Except that when the fan RPMs are evenly divisible by 256, the fans completely stop! Really, Corsair? Are you kidding me? You call this an acceptable level of quality? CLCP is a fan controller, marketed as controlling up to six fans. Your advertising fails to mention the fact that it doesn't work very well. This issue has been known for a month and a half now, and it is still not addressed!

Honestly, I don't know why I bother with Corsair anymore. I have had two Corsair PSUs die on me in as many years, and one memory set go bad. And my brand spanking new Corsair Commander Pro is basically worthless to me unless I run it at a fixed RPM so that the #*%@$ thing doesn't keep turning the fans off as my machine goes through the fan curve as it heats up and cools down.

This quote from Andy Paul is amusing (he is the CEO of Corsair, been there since the company started), from their jobs page: "We have a history of innovation based on understanding our customers and developing top notch products that enhance their experience."

Unfortunately I'm not seeing the "understanding our customers" and "top notch products" that Andy is talking about. And the only "enhancement" of my "experience" with their products is that I am very frustrated.

And on top of it all, they ban the one person who is perhaps the most passionate about supporting CL, CLCP, et al. This is completely ridiculous.

Ray, if you are reading this, have you thought about setting up a forum on your website, perhaps? It'd be great to be able to converse again.



Ray is my hero!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just made an account today because I really don't understand why Ray was banned, it's seems to be very unfair.

To this day, I haven't seen a person so helpful at trying to solve "strangers" problems. He did a great job with SIV and I even bought a Corsair Commander Pro because of him!!!
Ray from my understanding was been doing troubleshooting for free here in the Corsair forums, even detecting bugs on the sofware and enhancing Corsair Products customer experience, without any sort of profit.

I sure hope Corsair Forum Admins, or even Corsair Administration takes a deep look at how helpful he was been through all these years, because I am sure without Ray, most of the people that come to the forums looking for help won't find it anymore.

In my opinion, I find more disrespectful Corsair Dev Team completely ignoring Corsair Link problems for all these months without even an vague answer as > 'we will look into this' or a 'thank you' for his support through all this time. It is not for any reason that this thread is high rated and continues to have development until today.



Originally Posted by SpeedyV
Ray and SIV were the only reason I even bought a CLCP and all of my HD-RGB fans.


Without Ray's support for CLCC and CLCP, I never would have purchased them, as the forums at the time were replete with users complaining about the persistently buggy software.

The only "toxic" thing around these forums is the lack of official support for software problems; Ray could be acerbic, but rarely insultingly rude.
With how many times he repeated himself for various solutions, I'm surprised he wasn't more bitter.


Originally Posted by 5kft
And on top of it all, they ban the one person who is perhaps the most passionate about supporting CL, CLCP, et al. This is completely ridiculous.

Ray, if you are reading this, have you thought about setting up a forum on your website, perhaps? It'd be great to be able to converse again.


Hear Hear!



And probably the best post about this that was made there:


Originally Posted by rifter
Hear Hear!


Agreed, though if you care, you may want to be careful about what you post regarding Ray and Corsair. It seems to be a sensitive subject, and if they don't like what you have to say, you may find your post deleted. This has happened to me on several occasions. If they really don't like it, you may be banned.

I have followed this forum for several years and there are 2 things that have remained constant. Corsair releasing obviously untested, buggy software and firmware, and Ray trying his best to find the problems, offer solutions, and providing assistance to Corsair customers at every technical level. Ray has helped dozens, hundreds, of people with every sort of problem. He has provided Corsair with detailed, itemized lists of problems, and often times provided solutions, that hardly ever seem to be implemented. Yes he would lose his patience sometimes but who wouldn't if in his position?

SIV is a whole other discussion. The program was developed as a system monitoring tool - a very powerful system monitoring tool. Adding support for Link controlled devices was done after he realized how bad Link was. He has pointed out that the code involved with controlling Link based products is a relatively small section of the overall SIV code. When someone would discover a problem, he would fix it. If a feature was requested that made sense, it was added - usually within a day. New platforms and technology - X99, X299 - Skylake X, X399 Ryzen & Thread Ripper, Z370 - Coffee Lake, CPUs with more than 16 cores - all supported, already.

IIRC, Ray was banned at least once before but I guess they were able to work things out. Towards the end, he was really trying to work with Corsair. They even sent him some eval hardware. The only reasons they would do that were to either help him add support of Link devices to SIV (doubtful) or to help them debug Link and firmware issues. So he set up the hardware and proceeded to find and list problem after problem after problem. Isn't that what they wanted? In many cases, he also provided a viable solution. Isn't that what they wanted? He respected NDA restrictions on privileged information, like he should have. So what did he do that would warrant being banned?

Perhaps that is between Ray and Corsair but I have a feeling it had something to do with the recent release of CL 4.9.0.57 and CLCP firmware 0.3.153. It's clear that CL 4.9.0.57 is a complete disaster that has broken the interlocking required to access the SMB buss, resulting in operational conflicts with SIV, HWiNFO64, AIDA64 etc. I recall Ray fought long and hard to get Corsair to do it the "right way" and now, in what was evidently a planned regression, they undid it all. I think everyone has a limit and I suspect this move pushed Ray past his.

So now, Corsair has quite a mess on their hands, and they have banned the one person most likely to be able to help them fix it. Their presence on the board continues to be erratic, limited to their business hours (since we all know that no one runs into problems at night or on weekends), and posting advice that is usually limited to either reboot, re-install, or RMA, while never addressing the real issues.

I may get banned for stating all of this. Who knows? I can't say that I really care. The only reason I come to this forum is to see what Ray is up to and to learn from him, and ask his assistance with my Corsair hardware and SIV. I gave up on Link many releases ago. I don't ever run it except to re-blow the firmware into my CLCP when it locks up. SIV functions so much better than Link ever has, with much lower system overhead, and does a number of things that Link cannot. It's a no brainer for me. Without Ray, there is nothing for me here. I may hang around and watch CL 4.9.0.57 crash and burn while Corsair reps issue lame advice and dodge the real issues, but it seems that I can tune in for more of that anytime.

So best of luck to you all. Red Ray will end up somewhere else and I hope to follow him there. If he drops support for Corsair products, I won't be purchasing anymore anyway.



The reply from said mucky muck at Corsair, who then locked the thread:

This thread has been locked. While we appreciate the efforts made by the members of the forums, discussion of SIV is something best done with the creator of that software.

We are aware that this action has caused controversy, and we want the community to know that we did not take this action lightly. We worked with Red Ray for a long time in earnest to implement ideas and features, troubleshoot bugs, and document methodology. But unfortunately, despite numerous discussions, he chose not to treat CORSAIR forum users and staff with respect, and while he did assist a number of users, he was also, by far, the most reported user when it came to breaking forum rules and civility guidelines. This type of toxicity could no longer be tolerated in this community.

As said before, we want the entire community to be welcomed and feel comfortable discussing things at any level. Nobody should be made to feel foolish or insulted when asking for help.



So, other than I think that was a very unfortunate and probably short sighted decision on Corsairs part, my real question is, is there anyone else out there besides Corsair who makes these all in one coolers, hopefully with better software support? With Ray apparently out of the picture in terms of trying to deal with the many shortcomings of these products, I don't believe that bodes well for them. I haven't heard any others mentioned before, I know that you can always roll your own, but this is so much more convenient, and as Keith can attest to, much less expensive. This being said, I haven't heard of any other options so I may end up having to go with their product anways, but if anyone could recommend any other options for me to take a look at, I'd certainly appreciate it!

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Message 1922209 - Posted: 2 Mar 2018, 22:09:01 UTC
Last modified: 2 Mar 2018, 22:17:51 UTC

I have EVGA AIOs on my 1080ti cards, and my CPU loop is a do it yourself job.
I can suggest what I have used for the custom loop if you have any questions.

Here is a link to some recent CPU cooler reviews on Tom's Hardware.
And some more from Techguided.
2017 models reviewed on Gamersnexus.
And to add another thought..........
Ray has been nothing but helpful with the few suggestions/questions that I have had using his SIV.
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Message 1922226 - Posted: 2 Mar 2018, 23:09:08 UTC - in response to Message 1922209.  

Wow!? I hadn't heard of any of this till now. Got to be the stupidest thing that Corsair has ever done. I haven't looked at the Corsair forums in probably six months. Didn't need to since I have never used any of their software. SIV has always worked for me in controlling Corsair AIO's.

Well I am sure that further SIV releases will still be able to control Corsair and NZXT AIO's. Why wouldn't it, the work has already been done. Unless Ray decides to remove support just from spite, but that would only hurt and annoy SIV users. Would have no effect directly on Corsair.

Further all the current AIO' s are made by the OEM Asetek and the actual finished product is just the vendor repackaging the base hardware with different LED's or plastic housings and tubing. The pump and its control firmware is still 100% Asetek. The NZXT AIO's are basically the same and just have their own software control package. The same goes for EVGA. If it is Asetek or CooliT based, then SIV can control it.

I believe the Kraken X62 and EVGA CLC 280 are tops of the AIO cooler charts. GamersNexus did a review of the the new Corsair H150i and gave it a so-so, why bother review. It performed no better than the Kraken X62 or CLC 280, actually much worse. So another underwhelmingly performing Corsair product.

If I had to go with anything Corsair, I would stick with the H110i based on Ray's still valid comments that it is based on CooliT hardware and not Asetek. The Kraken X62 is still a great choice as well as the EVGA CLC280 that Mark endorses.

There are also some nice upgradeable, expandable AIO's that allow you to break the loop and add in more components like the new EK MLC Phoenix semi-closed loop cooler or the Alphacool Eiswand.
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Message 1922227 - Posted: 2 Mar 2018, 23:09:23 UTC

I went the starter custom AIO route with a Rainjintek 280mm and a Lepa 240mm and a spare O.C.Cool pump/waterblock.
What this give you is the g1/4 fitting so that changing hose lengths, or rads is no big deal.
One can always add a GPU and/or extra rad too if wanted.

I plan on adding a waterblock to my Ryzen with the Lepa pump/waterblock now.
Who said the pump needs to be attached to the CPU? I can mount it just like a normal pump :)
I have the option now of expanding in steps as I want too.
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Message 1922301 - Posted: 3 Mar 2018, 3:57:19 UTC

Well, as I am kind of a EVGA Fanboi, I think I might look at a pair of the CLC 280's, and from reading the reviews on Amazon and NewEgg, they pretty much are considered decent, though like the Corsairs, the software might not be completely ready for prime time, and there are comments that the fans are certainly not the quietest. But if they're going to be moved to my shop in the near future, sound isn't going to be an issue, that's for certain. They seem to have top notch cooling capacity for an AIO, so that's pretty much my goal with this one, if it can keep the temps down in the 30's-40's, I'll be quite happy.

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Message 1922308 - Posted: 3 Mar 2018, 4:10:04 UTC - in response to Message 1922301.  
Last modified: 3 Mar 2018, 4:10:35 UTC

You can still dump the provided EVGA software and use SIV to control the AIO's. SIV actually can handle mulitple AIO's from the same vendor which cannot be said for the EVGA software.
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Message 1924829 - Posted: 16 Mar 2018, 3:11:47 UTC - in response to Message 1922308.  

Well, ended up getting a pair of the 280's from Microcenter, it was a hard deal to pass up, because I had bought a couple of low end processors, and got a Big discount on the coolers because of it, so I guess I will be building a couple more cruchers down the road. So, next is installing it on that system and seeing if I can get the temps down from the mid 50s-low 60s to hopefully the 30's-40s? We'll see, but that will have to wait till next week when the new TIM arrives before I do the install.

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Message 1924831 - Posted: 16 Mar 2018, 3:20:45 UTC

With the EVGA Hybrid kits installed on my 1080ti's, I have one card pulling about 40 to 43c, and the other pulling about 38 to 41c.
I am using upgraded fans pushing the air through the radiators. Actually, push-pull with fans above and below.
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Message 1924832 - Posted: 16 Mar 2018, 3:22:44 UTC - in response to Message 1924829.  

Thanks for the update Al. I am really curious about the EVGA CLC 280's and how they perform compared to the Corsair AIO's. Hope your experience is good. I would like to know whether they are the better deal compared to the commodity Corsair stuff.
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Message 1924987 - Posted: 17 Mar 2018, 1:12:13 UTC - in response to Message 1924832.  

Sure will, they are going to go into LotzaCores2dot0, it's got a pair of Xeon E5-2683 v3's in it, so hopefully it'll be worth the hassle and investment, as I am getting an occasional BSOD on it. I've found that it has recovered from a unplanned shutdown sometimes when I turn on the monitor to check on it. Here's hoping at least. I'm going to give everything a decent cleaning as well while I have it apart.

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Message 1925005 - Posted: 17 Mar 2018, 2:18:21 UTC

I put my Corsair H100iV2 that has been RMA replaced 3 times now and was in the backshelf/emergency use status into the new Linux Xeon cruncher. It is just loafing along only having to deal with a miniscule 85W dissipation of the Xeon E5-2620 V4 @ 2.3Ghz. The cpu is running at 40° C. I decided that the Xeon is too slow for me and ordered a i7 6850K off eBay. The AIO will have something to work on with the 140W TDP dissipation when that chip goes in.
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Message 1925006 - Posted: 17 Mar 2018, 2:40:03 UTC - in response to Message 1925005.  
Last modified: 17 Mar 2018, 2:46:01 UTC

For giggles was just checking the E5 v4 processor family on Intels site, and came across the E5-1680 v4, that looked like a pretty capable one, if your board supported it. 8 cores, 4.00 GHz turbo mode and 3.40 GHz base frequency. Of course, I just checked around and found one on thinkmate.com, and they are selling for about $2000 new, so my guess is you'd probably be passing on one of those. Ugh. Maybe in a few years when the price gets a _wee_ bit more reasonable, if you can find one used as I didn't see any with my quick search...

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Message 1925011 - Posted: 17 Mar 2018, 3:22:23 UTC - in response to Message 1925006.  

Well I am learning the hard way about the capabilities of Xeons and the price structure of Intel cpus. I should have done more due diligence in researching what the Xeon family is all about. They are server chips. Not known for anything other than low clocked parts. I jumped on the 2620 simply because it had the same number of cores/threads as what I was used to with my Ryzens. I was thinking I needed all those threads to support the four graphics cards I was going to install into the new cruncher.

Reality is a bitch. Can't overclock the chip. Yes you can install four double wide gpus but you end up with the same butt to butt card spacing that makes cooling problematical. And with the difficulty in procuring any high end gpus, let alone with either hybrid or water cooling a factor, I realized that I would likely only install 3 gpus with one slot spacing in between cards for best cooling.

So, the overclockable i7-6850K @ 3.6Ghz with six cores/12 threads suddenly looked like the better purchase. It wasn't insanely priced like the 6950K and has enough threads to support 3 gpus X 2 tasks per card and still able to run a few cpu tasks. I got a good price on the chip from eBay. Should be here next week sometime I think. I also went ahead and ordered the two thicknesses of Fujipoly thermal pad material to replace the stock pads on the PCH/PLX chip heat sink. So having to remove the Xeon and install the 6850K will be a good opportunity to pull the motherboard out of the chassis and replace the thermal pads. I hope that will reduce the likelihood of the PCH cooling problem I have with the motherboard. I probably will still keep the extra fan blowing over the PCH though. Who knows how things will shake out when the i7 goes in at an additional 60W of dissipation along with much higher stock clocks. I also will see what the Ripjaws DDR4-3000 memory is capable of. Such a waste right now having to run at 2133Mhz.
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Message boards : Number crunching : Suggestions for an all in one CPU water cooling solution other than Corsair?


 
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