Old corsair h50 - bought 2011 finally dying

[Golf1.6]

Hi

My h50 (sealed unit) has finally shown signs of wear and is making rattling noises similar to a very old mechanical hard drive seeking noise.

It's an old-ish i5 2500K system that isn't overclocked which is used to play GTA5 and civilization 5. So doesn't need a expensive cooling system.

I'm trying to figure out if the noise is OK mechanically speaking or indicating some sort of wear that could cause it to malfunction at some point.

Also what is the best replacement for it? Is these sealed CPU watercooling systems proven to be more effective than air cooled systems? What is the most silent system to buy?

 

[Habakkuk]

If it's not the fan, the only other moving part is the pump - and you really don't want to be running the computer when that dies.

I've seen lifespans of 5-8 years for those, so that's pretty good going.

 

[Golf1.6]

And it's finally dead, I ordered an akasa a10 to replace it.

The rattling stopped shortly after posting so I just put up with it.

Today the computer slowed down like it was having memory troubles (16gb memory so unlikely) and then it shut down. Tried to boot up but it would shut down before post. Thought CPU had failed, and then left it for 30 mins and rebooted , this time it booted (because cpu cooled sufficiently). Ran core temp and say it was 98 degrees. Woops, quickly shut it down.

Something is wrong with the pump i can feel vibration on the pump and just one of the tubes. I wonder if the radiator is clogged up and not allowing water to go through. Or it could be a impeller failure on the pump where the impeller [blades on pump] has worn down too much so it can't push water through very well.

Hopefully there's no long term damage on the cpu. This is the problem with sealed watercooling units, there are no visible signs of problems. You only see an issue when the temps go out of control.

 

[MikeTimbers]

For single radiator AIO, a good heat pipe cooler will usually compete quite well.

 

[Golf1.6]

For single radiator AIO, a good heat pipe cooler will usually compete quite well.

Yes, I read that somewhere. I also read that AIO single rad coolers have slightly better performance initially, but after a few hours they aren't any better than good heat pipe cooler. Apparantly because the water does a good job of absorbing the heat from the CPU, it isn't very good at dissipating heat, especially in the small 120mm x 120mm radiator.

That said, I like how open AIO coolers make the motherboard and I got it at a very good price (just £29)

 

[Golf1.6]

akasa venom a10 fitted, getting temps ranging from 42-52. Much better than the 98.

I think there was a lot of liquid loss on the h50, if you shake it about you can hear the half filled water sloshing around. I think that was the problem - there was water loss on the system to the point that there wasn't enough water in the rad for it to cool.

I'm not going to throw this away just yet. It might be useful to someone who wants to mod it and put a reservoir in. I remember someone doing this a while ago when the h50 was new. They managed to get the temps down a couple degrees lower.

 

[Golf1.6]

actually, it's going on a local classifieds site as a freebie. Maybe a project for a 14 year old to do.