Corsair H105 not cooling too well

EsSence · 7 May 2014 at 11:58

Hello
Having replaced the thermal grease about 5 times now on my H105 I can only assume that it doesn't cool as well as my old Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro
Cooler . Temperatures jump all over the place with the H105 . Idle at 32 degrees but can spike to 48 just by opening Lightroom 5.2 or just by having the CPU usage at 5% . My Water 2.0 never had such jumps.
Running a stress test with prime95 sees temps hit 60 degrees , but again with the smaller Thermaltake Water cooler they never went over 56 degrees.

Is it due to the fact the corsair has a pretty lousy mounting system with the back bracket and mounting posts so slack its laughable until the top is screwed down ? That doesn't fill me full of confidence from the start.
Anyway be glad to hear any thoughts before I sell it .
Thanks

snips86x · 7 May 2014 at 11:59

What fans do you have & does it have a USB connection on the pump?

Marine-RX179 · 7 May 2014 at 12:17

Not trying to be a joker or anything, but the temp of your Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro that you recall...is it what you read just before swapping over to the Corsair, or is it what you recall from few months back while it is still in the winter?

Also, the thermal paste might take time to settle in for optimal efficiency?

EsSence · 7 May 2014 at 12:27

snips86x said:
What fans do you have & does it have a USB connection on the pump?

I have the two stock Corsair SP120L on it . The Pump is a 3 pin connector which is connected directly to my PSU . No USB on the H105 .

As for the temps , the Water 2.0 pro was used up until December last year .
Even in the summer months it was outperforming the H105 by a few degrees.
Currently got Noctua NT-H1 paste on it but to be honest all Thermal grease seems to perform the same with it which is no surprise really.
What is surprising is that having a larger radiator has made no difference to temps . Its mounted in the top of my Obsidian 750D to.

Thanks for the replies .

stulid · 7 May 2014 at 12:30

Are the thumb screws nice and tight? this is what removes the slack from the posts and back plate as it squeezes down onto the cpu

EsSence · 7 May 2014 at 12:51

stulid said:
Are the thumb screws nice and tight? this is what removes the slack from the posts and back plate as it squeezes down onto the cpu

Thanks ,
Yes they are nice and tight and the backplate is pulled in snugly.
I tried the one ( very small) pea size method of paste like noctua say but it didn't spread too well , so I went back to manually spreading it.
Only paste I haven't tried is the paste I used with the Thermaltake .
Gelid GC Extreme which is good stuff .
Again though , the H105 hasn't gone above 65 degrees with Prime so its not like its a major worry.

snips86x · 7 May 2014 at 12:54

My H100i is 25-32 idle and 55 under load. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Don't forget, the weather is getting warmer and the lack of cooler/cold air will obviously hamper the cooling abilities.