Antec 920 pump noise

Ice213

Ice213

Ice213

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Joined
30 Mar 2012
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427
Hi everyone.

I bought myself an antec 920 a week or so ago, and since installation it has been on and off making a rattling noise (kinda like a fridge). I read a 'fix' on the web that involved laying the case flat, running it for a while, standing it up and the problem should be solved...tried it, didn't work :(. It may have actually made the issue a little worse.

Anyone know of another fix that might be possible for the noise? It's louder than the 5 other fans + the gpu fan put together at the moment :(. I got it because of claims it was quiet. Should have stuck with my stock intel cooler ;).

I don't really want to RMA it either to be honest.

Thanks in advance.
 
Looking into getting one of these myself.

My research indicates that it takes a bit of time for the air in the loop to 'settle'.
All in one loops have a bit of air in them.

So it could be that causing the noise.

Did you grab aftermarket fans for it?

Your rad is 'above' the CPU cooler bit?
 
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Yeah I replaced the original fans and have them all hooked up to a fan controller so I was turning all the fans off so that I could listen to see if it was still making the noise.

I did read about the air settling, but wasn't sure on a time frame, I've used it every day since I've installed it so I'd hoped it would be gone by now :(.

Yeah it's slightly above it, it's mounted as a rear exhaust on the back of the PC in an NZXT Phantom case. Slightly above I'd say though, only slightly.
 
Ice213 said:
Yeah I replaced the original fans and have them all hooked up to a fan controller so I was turning all the fans off so that I could listen to see if it was still making the noise.

I did read about the air settling, but wasn't sure on a time frame, I've used it every day since I've installed it so I'd hoped it would be gone by now :(.

Yeah it's slightly above it, it's mounted as a rear exhaust on the back of the PC in an NZXT Phantom case. Slightly above I'd say though, only slightly.
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the general settling in consensus is a month.

How are your temps, anything wrong in that department?

Depends on your rma tbh, you could give it the month and take it from there.
I'm no expert in these matters, just what I have researched .

Maybe more learned people will give better input. ;-)
 
a MONTH!?... any watercooling loop should clear of air bubbles in minutes, not a month
you might just have to tilt it about a bit to get them to budge

if you can hear a constant air bubble noise then it could be that air is trapped in the pump, which could lead to premature failure, you want to clear that as quickly as possible

obviously the difficulty with all in ones is that they are not clear so you can't see anywhere if there's bubbles shifting about (where as a custom loop often you use clear components / tubing to make this easier)
 
My temps seem fine I think, Idling at 30ish, maxes out at about 65 when gaming for long periods.

andybird123 said:
a MONTH!?... any watercooling loop should clear of air bubbles in minutes, not a month
you might just have to tilt it about a bit to get them to budge

if you can hear a constant air bubble noise then it could be that air is trapped in the pump, which could lead to premature failure, you want to clear that as quickly as possible

obviously the difficulty with all in ones is that they are not clear so you can't see anywhere if there's bubbles shifting about (where as a custom loop often you use clear components / tubing to make this easier)
Click to expand...

I'd liken the noise to a buzzing/rattling noise. I tried the fix of lying the whole machine on it's side to force the air bubble out, but it possibly made it worse. It's not as bad today, but still definitely there. Almost like a fish tank noise. However, sometimes it is worse than other times, and it seems pretty random.

EDIT: Like right now for example, it sounds a lot, lot louder than it did about 5-10 minutes ago

By tilt it, do you mean tilt the machine or the tubes? And yeah, I don't really want it to fail anytime soon, and I also want the noise gone, so getting rid of the air is win win I guess.
 
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the machine

fish tank noise does indeed sound like air

when you build a full size loop you usually integrate a place where air can safely collect so that it doesn't pose a problem, but looking at the 920 I'm not sure where this would be
 
andybird123 said:
the machine

fish tank noise does indeed sound like air

when you build a full size loop you usually integrate a place where air can safely collect so that it doesn't pose a problem, but looking at the 920 I'm not sure where this would be
Click to expand...

Originally I was going to build a full loop, but I didn't have the cash really as I was buying a few other bits at the same time, so I went for this instead.

I will try tilting it and see where we get to, how long about should I leave it tilted for? Should I consider propping it up in the tilted position? And I'd be tilting it so the mobo side would be closest to the floor (if that makes sense), is that right?
 
tilt it every which way you can, you don't need to leave it in the tilted position more than say 5-10 seconds (think about how air moves in liquid - you want all the air to run to the highest point in the system or somewhere it can collect safely - the worst place for air to collect is the pump - which is atop the CPU cooler, so tilt it so that the CPU cooler / pump is the lowest point and the exit tube is higher than any other part of the pump - laying it motherboard side down will probably be the easiest way to do this

to be honest, I thought the point of these all in one coolers was that they didn't have much air in them anyway, so if you are getting a pronounced noise due to air then its possible its faulty
 
andybird123 said:
tilt it every which way you can, you don't need to leave it in the tilted position more than say 5-10 seconds (think about how air moves in liquid - you want all the air to run to the highest point in the system or somewhere it can collect safely - the worst place for air to collect is the pump - which is atop the CPU cooler, so tilt it so that the CPU cooler / pump is the lowest point and the exit tube is higher than any other part of the pump - laying it motherboard side down will probably be the easiest way to do this

to be honest, I thought the point of these all in one coolers was that they didn't have much air in them anyway, so if you are getting a pronounced noise due to air then its possible its faulty
Click to expand...

Right I'm going to do some tilting and see what I can do. It seems to be a pretty common problem with this particular cooler the buzzing/rattling (although I didn't know this until I had installed it :p). Someone fixed it with a magnet on youtube but to be honest I don't want to go sticking magnets to things inside my case.
 
Right, I tilted it a few different directions, and it's making a lot quieter of a noise now. More of a gentle humming which I can only hear when all the fans in my case are off. However it has gone quiet before, and then gone louder again, which I'm not sure if that would mean a fault or something else. Strangely enough, it was after I had put the PC back down after a tilt that it stopped, it made the loud noise for a few seconds and then went quiet. I just hope it stays quiet now because the noise was driving me insane!

Thanks for all the help though :). And I just hope it's sorted now :D.
 
Totally spoke too soon on that one, noise is back, not quite as bad, but still back. Tried more tilting but no luck this time :(. Time to start saving for a full custom loop me thinks.
 
Hi,

I'm posting this because I had been having similar issues with my pump. After many days of trying everything to make the rattling disappear, I tried the magnet trick which finally worked.


However, I wasn't happy with having a magnet stuck on the front of my cooler. Eventually I unmounted the unit, and spent a good 20 minutes shaking the unit (both pump and rad) to release the air trapped inside the pump unit. When doing this, it's important to ensure the radiator is well above the pump unit, the radiator pipes are exiting the rad from the underside, and to turn the pump while shaking to allow the air to escape (the trapped air rises up through the pipes and rad).

It's now thankfully running silent. I hope this saves someone the hassle I've been through trying to resolve this.

Cheers.
 
for the fixed loop builds I have done i always have the rad above the pump and then the rad pipes always at the bottom aka fixed to the back of the case not the top. air has always cleared in less than a min.

Ive built 4 systems with antec fixed loop and never had an issue when I followed this plan.
 
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