ID cooling FROSTFLOW+ 280 or Corsair H115i refurb?

Keep in mind the warranty on Corsair refubs is only 1 year.

Personally I won't use CLCs, but prefer a good air cooler. They cost same or less, make less noise and last much longer. Only thing that can wear out is fan and it's an easy fix. With a CLC it's almost ways the pump that fails and when it does there is no cooling until system is replace with something else.
 
doyll said:
Keep in mind the warranty on Corsair refubs is only 1 year.

Personally I won't use CLCs, but prefer a good air cooler. They cost same or less, make less noise and last much longer. Only thing that can wear out is fan and it's an easy fix. With a CLC it's almost ways the pump that fails and when it does there is no cooling until system is replace with something else.
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1 year for a refurb is decent. The ID 280 has no mention of a warranty on the OCuk, Amazon or the official product page.

Ross Thomson said:
ID cooling is pretty good - run one on an ryzen 2600 overclocked to 4.125 ghz. fairly quiet at normal fan RPM
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I've seen some short reviews but nothing detail or with proper comparisons.
 
silk186 said:
1 year for a refurb is decent. The ID 280 has no mention of a warranty on the OCuk, Amazon or the official product page.
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Below is link to ID-Cooling warranty page.
http://www.idcooling.com/Support/warranty

Not much info, but it does say "ID-COOLING provides at lease 1 year warranty for all products from the purchasing date." Not enough for me on CLCs, may be fine for air coolers, but they have nothing to wear out. For fans and CLCs I want much more than 1 year warranty. ;)
 
doyll said:
Below is link to ID-Cooling warranty page.
http://www.idcooling.com/Support/warranty

Not much info, but it does say "ID-COOLING provides at lease 1 year warranty for all products from the purchasing date." Not enough for me on CLCs, may be fine for air coolers, but they have nothing to wear out. For fans and CLCs I want much more than 1 year warranty. ;)
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Yes, I read that. Which means that both coolers have a 1 year warranty.
I'm curious about how they compare in terms of thermals and noise.
 
silk186 said:
Yes, I read that. Which means that both coolers have a 1 year warranty.
I'm curious about how they compare in terms of thermals and noise.
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I would be more concerned by length of warranty than anything. That and looking at prices of using a good air cooler instead of a CLC. They are also lower priced. If you want some help selecting an air cooler, let me know what your case, motherboard and RAM you have and I can suggest air coolers that will fit.
 
I decided to give the Chinese brand a try. My wife is flying back from China, so I asked her to grab me one.
They are £23 from the official ID-Cooler shop on Tmall, which is the official side of Taobao.
Looking at sales, they seem very popular in the domestic market with 72 sold this month and all positive reviews.
 
They will all be positive reviews when they work, it's when they break that it matters. Usually these AIO's fail with a pump failure but they can leak and if one leaks and takes out other components that £23 will turn into a very big financial hit unless the manufacturer of the AIO stumps up the cash for replacement components that their faulty cooler has killed. I can't find any information on the length of warranty on ID-Cooling's AIO's so that is a worry for a start. Why make it so hard to find out warranty length unless of course they intentionally want to make it difficult for people to claim? Let's assume it has the minimum 1 year warranty (this applies to the refurb as well). What happens if that cooler leaks a week after the warranty runs out and kills the motherboard, cpu and gpu? Basically they will turn around and tell you it's tough luck, you are out of warranty. Personally I wouldn't touch a AIO as I have custom watercooling but if I were to buy a AIO it certainly wouldn't be one that only has a single years warranty no matter who has made it plus I would only buy from a reputable brand that has a track record of sorting things out correctly when things go wrong. I don't particularly like Corsair but at least they handle coolers that kill other components on a case by case basis and make sure that the customer is not out of pocket. I still wouldn't buy anything of theirs (or anybody elses) that is a refurb though.
 
Are we looking at same website? Because link I posted about warranty in post #5 was on their website. Here it is again.
http://www.idcooling.wcom/Support/warranty
"1. Warranty terms differs from one country to another due to local laws and regulations. The below terms serve as warranty guidelines for all distribution areas. Please inquire your local resellers for detailed warranty service."

"6. ID-COOLING provides at lease 1 year warranty for all products from the purchasing date."

They say warranty depends on country, but I can find nothing beyond that and the 1 year bit.
 
pastymuncher said:
They will all be positive reviews when they work, it's when they break that it matters. Usually these AIO's fail with a pump failure but they can leak and if one leaks and takes out other components that £23 will turn into a very big financial hit unless the manufacturer of the AIO stumps up the cash for replacement components that their faulty cooler has killed. I can't find any information on the length of warranty on ID-Cooling's AIO's so that is a worry for a start. Why make it so hard to find out warranty length unless of course they intentionally want to make it difficult for people to claim? Let's assume it has the minimum 1 year warranty (this applies to the refurb as well). What happens if that cooler leaks a week after the warranty runs out and kills the motherboard, cpu and gpu? Basically they will turn around and tell you it's tough luck, you are out of warranty. Personally I wouldn't touch a AIO as I have custom watercooling but if I were to buy a AIO it certainly wouldn't be one that only has a single years warranty no matter who has made it plus I would only buy from a reputable brand that has a track record of sorting things out correctly when things go wrong. I don't particularly like Corsair but at least they handle coolers that kill other components on a case by case basis and make sure that the customer is not out of pocket. I still wouldn't buy anything of theirs (or anybody elses) that is a refurb though.
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Isn't the the risk of water cooking in general?
AIO coolers have been around for a while. This company has a full range of water coolers that are popular in the largest market in the world. It probably won't last as long as a new Corsair but I'm fine with that.
I tried out several Chinese mech keyboards which were great. I bought 4 and the space bar stopped working right on one of them. I got to try TKL and 60% as well as brown, black and blue switches.
I've had better luck with Chines keyboards than I've had with Microsoft keyboards. I'm also about to order my second G403 replacement as I woke up this morning to a dead mouse.
 
silk186 said:
Isn't the the risk of water cooking in general?
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Not really. If a custom water loop leaks then 99% of the time it's down to something the person building the loop has done. You can get unlucky and have O-rings fail but that's pretty rare although I have had it happen to me and will never touch a EK product ever again due to their apalling customer service. I caught it when It was only doing a couple of drops a day so no damage done. The only other time I had a leak was the very first time I set my first loop up and that was due to inexperience because I tightened a fitting too tightly into a acrylic res and cracked it. I noticed it straight away when filling and replaced it with no damage done to components. They are the only two leaks I have had in over 14 years of custome watercooling and my setup is quite complex.

Custom watercooling components are generally of a vastly higher quality than those used in AIO's so as long as they are put together in the loop properly should be much more reliable. A keyboard or mouse is highly unlikely to kill other components when they fail so you can't really compare them with cheap AIO's.

A while back on here Raijintek launched their Triton watercoolers to much fanfare. They looked good and were very reasonably priced. All was well for a couple of months and then the floodgates quite literally opened. The pump/block was inside a clear acrylic reservoir which mounted on the cpu and they were fracturing and spilling coolant over the motherboard, cpu and gpu most often killing them. Despite all the promises of quick resolutions and that people will be taken care of the tales of people having to fight for compensation started. They were made to jump through hoops and the process became very drawn out and often took months to sort out. Even then they tried fobbing people off with lower settlements. Eventually they removed the Tritons from sale which should have been done as soon as they realised there was a very big problem. People were still struggling to get hold of Raijinteks customer service which seemed to get even worse as time went on. We had a massive thread on it on here and people were wating for many months which was completely unacceptable. No doubt others gave up after being messed around so much. It goes to show that a warranty and customer service can be worthless in cases like this and it's important to choose a company with a proven track record which is why I would recommend Corsair over others when it comes to AIO's. It's no particular preference of mine but they do tend to look after their customers when things go wrong.
 
pastymuncher said:
Not really. If a custom water loop leaks then 99% of the time it's down to something the person building the loop has done. You can get unlucky and have O-rings fail but that's pretty rare although I have had it happen to me and will never touch a EK product ever again due to their apalling customer service. I caught it when It was only doing a couple of drops a day so no damage done. The only other time I had a leak was the very first time I set my first loop up and that was due to inexperience because I tightened a fitting too tightly into a acrylic res and cracked it. I noticed it straight away when filling and replaced it with no damage done to components. They are the only two leaks I have had in over 14 years of custome watercooling and my setup is quite complex.

Custom watercooling components are generally of a vastly higher quality than those used in AIO's so as long as they are put together in the loop properly should be much more reliable. A keyboard or mouse is highly unlikely to kill other components when they fail so you can't really compare them with cheap AIO's.

A while back on here Raijintek launched their Triton watercoolers to much fanfare. They looked good and were very reasonably priced. All was well for a couple of months and then the floodgates quite literally opened. The pump/block was inside a clear acrylic reservoir which mounted on the cpu and they were fracturing and spilling coolant over the motherboard, cpu and gpu most often killing them. Despite all the promises of quick resolutions and that people will be taken care of the tales of people having to fight for compensation started. They were made to jump through hoops and the process became very drawn out and often took months to sort out. Even then they tried fobbing people off with lower settlements. Eventually they removed the Tritons from sale which should have been done as soon as they realised there was a very big problem. People were still struggling to get hold of Raijinteks customer service which seemed to get even worse as time went on. We had a massive thread on it on here and people were wating for many months which was completely unacceptable. No doubt others gave up after being messed around so much. It goes to show that a warranty and customer service can be worthless in cases like this and it's important to choose a company with a proven track record which is why I would recommend Corsair over others when it comes to AIO's. It's no particular preference of mine but they do tend to look after their customers when things go wrong.
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Yes, that is why I would not go with a company that hasn't beeing making AIO cooler for a while or a product that is new to the market. This company has been making them for a while for the domestic market. This version while available in China is their export model.
AIO coolers are no longer a new thing. They have had years to refine the product.
 
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