Laing DDC 1 Ultra, noisy

bazaarboy · 13 May 2011 at 13:36

ok, so new system is now up and running, and I'm pleased with it, except one thing...

it's a sandybridge i7, clocked to 4.6ghz (as per ocuk bundle) in a watercooled 800D case.
the w/c rig is an XSPC dual bay reservoir with an integrated Laing DDC 1 Ultra 12v DC pump

The problem is the pump noise - it spins at 4600rpm, and the high pitch whirr is annoying me
I've taken the reservoir out and held it, tried different positions - but the noise is there

does anyone have any experience with this pump / reservoir?

I should mention I used an old rheostat to bring the RPM to 3600 which really improved the noise but the rheostat started smoking!!

bazaarboy · 13 May 2011 at 19:21

just an update for anyone following this thread...
the main options it seems are: using a potentiometer or the PWM method
the problem is the Laing pump uses up to 20W (especially important when starting the pump) so this makes finding a suitable fan controller quite hard!

one option is this:

mCube miniNG

Has anyone got any experience with this? It seems quite powerful - if a little difficult to configure...

cjgardens · 13 May 2011 at 20:57

The pump shouldn't be making noise really if its new.

The power for the pump comes from the molex so you might have a job controlling the speed. I would send it back if its that bad

Cupra · 13 May 2011 at 21:07

change the pump for a 10w version

problem solved

cjgardens · 13 May 2011 at 21:13

Cupra said:
change the pump for a 10w version

problem solved

plan!

Ill gladly swap for mine

dazzerd · 14 May 2011 at 14:14

bazaarboy said:
ok, so new system is now up and running, and I'm pleased with it, except one thing...

it's a sandybridge i7, clocked to 4.6ghz (as per ocuk bundle) in a watercooled 800D case.
the w/c rig is an XSPC dual bay reservoir with an integrated Laing DDC 1 Ultra 12v DC pump

The problem is the pump noise - it spins at 4600rpm, and the high pitch whirr is annoying me
I've taken the reservoir out and held it, tried different positions - but the noise is there

does anyone have any experience with this pump / reservoir?

I should mention I used an old rheostat to bring the RPM to 3600 which really improved the noise but the rheostat started smoking!!

Get a decent fan controller and stick it on their; I used to use a ddc on a lamptron FC2 which can handle 45w per channel and 3.75A plenty for a ddc which only requires 1.5A. The only thing you need is a molex to 3 pin connector which you can buy for a quicd or just make your own,

jonneymendoza · 15 Nov 2011 at 22:23

dazzerd said:
Get a decent fan controller and stick it on their; I used to use a ddc on a lamptron FC2 which can handle 45w per channel and 3.75A plenty for a ddc which only requires 1.5A. The only thing you need is a molex to 3 pin connector which you can buy for a quicd or just make your own,

Hi. my one makes same noise. how and where do u attach the pump into a fan controller? using the supplied 3 pin connection? i connected it to my motherboard. cant i control it from their?

dazzerd · 17 Nov 2011 at 12:39

Ignore

dazzerd · 17 Nov 2011 at 12:52

jonneymendoza said:
Hi. my one makes same noise. how and where do u attach the pump into a fan controller? using the supplied 3 pin connection? i connected it to my motherboard. cant i control it from their?

The 3 pin wire on a ddc is a sensor wire, so you can plug it into your mobo header and it will register the rpm of the impeller. It does not power the pump. The pump needs to be powered from a molex, if you want to control the pump you can use an Alphacool 4 Pin Molex to 3 Pin Pump Adaptor Cable or make your own or whatever. Plug the molex of the pump into the male molex on the adapter and plug the 3 pin into your fan controller.

This would mean you could see the rpm via bios and software an manually control it.

I do not recommend doing this on any lowly fan controller, fc2 will work fine as would most lampton and sunbeam controllers but do not do this on a Scythe or Zalman else it will burn out being on the limit of what they can handle. A 10w ddc will pull 0.83 amps on full but more on start up I would suggest getting a fc which can handle twice that as the pump will spike higher.

Also look into using an mcp35x pump as this will do all you need automatically rather than messing around with pumps and fc which sometimes dont work as expected.

jonneymendoza · 17 Nov 2011 at 14:11

cool thanks mate. i heard the 655 pumps have manual rpm speed adjusments.

anyways after a couple of days it seems the pump is whisper silent now

Kinsy · 20 Nov 2011 at 04:13

Sounds like you didn't bleed all the air out of your system.

My DDC Ultra is whisper quiet - but even the smallest amount of air caused a lot of cavitation noise, which is what you were probably hearing.

koooowweeee · 20 Nov 2011 at 10:29

As said send it back. I've had loads with on problems. But I've also heard of people having problems with noise

moogle · 20 Nov 2011 at 10:51

If the pump is quiet now then it means that there was air in the loop.

One problem with the DDC 18W or any without speed control is that they push the water really quick and if you have any air it just gets sucked back in keeping the air in the loop and making noise. Also it fizzes/froths the water when there's air so you get lots of microbubbles in the loop.

If you have a fan controller then plug in the pump and just power it on only and cycle the pump speeds. Start it off low to push the air in the loop and let it escape then put it on high speed to make it push out any air trapped inside the radiator or high points in the loop. Once those bubbles come out slow it down to let them escape.

I did that method and had my system nearly air free in 10 mins. (I had to tilt my case a bit as I wanted all the air out).

It's much harder if you don't have transparent tubing though