My Battle with the Corsair 540 cube

Gabbatek · 4 Apr 2017 at 08:40

Since day one i've been battling this case for so long with vibrations coming through. I've narrowed it down to the top panel and the hard drive seats in the bottom. I was going to give up and get a new case but i refuse to be beaten!!!

What i found funny was the corsair rep on here has never heard of the 540 having vibrating issues but a quick search through their forums comes up with loads of posts with exactly the same issue and suggested fixes.

So im off to maplin to get some rubber mats to put under the hd's, rubber washers for all fans and some double sided tape for the grills.

/salty-rant

ZXSpectrum · 4 Apr 2017 at 09:58

I have had an Air540 for years. The entire case has been stripped and rebuilt about 4 times now and I cant ever say I have noticed any rattling/vibration. I am currently working on doing a load of custom work on it with lots of rads etc.

Not this case but my old ProLiant microserver used to make bad vibration noise and it turned out that it was because the drives I had used were 7200rpm

Danny75 · 4 Apr 2017 at 10:46

Friend had a vibration noise problem with his 540 and asked me to have a look at it. In his case it was the top panel - the long black bars on it were vibrating on its mesh underneath. Lifting up the bars a little, carefully, and slipping some velcro ties (just what I had handy) between the bars and the mesh, sorted it.

roge8014 · 4 Apr 2017 at 14:56

I had the same issue, Gabbatek, I thought the vibration was coming from the top or front panel. But after a lot of pain in trying to isolate the noise (as my Air 540 is literally next to me) it was very annoying. I removed the top and front panels (and filters) and let it run; found out the vibration noise was still there.

Decided it had to be the HDD tray at the bottom.

Didn't have any rubber mat for the bottom, so had an old credit card when wedged in stopped the vibration. Was only meant to be a temporary fix, not got around to fixing it permanently yet!!

Gabbatek · 4 Apr 2017 at 15:41

Thanks guys i'm glad im not the only one!! (hope you're reading this corsair rep :mad:

)

Sooo i went all out on this for hours. Like some of you i took the top and front panel off but i used double sided sticky foam tape and stuck it along the black bars which took ages to get it neat and perfect. I then removed the hard drive bays and stuck washers where the drives plug in, i then stuck akasa pakmate undeath the drives and with a lot of hard work pushed them back in. Also put anti vibration washers on every fan and mount.

It's taken a whole day but i am finally FREEEEE from vibrations and resonance. Now im going to eat pizza and watch rick and morty

Behemoth · 5 Apr 2017 at 12:02

My air 240 vibrates too sometimes, I think a lot of it my problem though was to do with the positioning of the top fan and screws. I moved said fan to the middle of the case and it has stopped vibrating.

Rroff · 5 Apr 2017 at 12:16

For some reason most of the (audible) vibrations stopped with mine using silicon dampers on the rear exhaust fan (both on the inside and the strut outside) maybe because its the fastest fan on there. The top panel (as detailed above) caused some minor intermittent rattling when I had an AIO mounted up top but it was pretty minor - a dab of glue in the middle of the black bars would probably fix it (just be careful you don't use a glue that would melt the plastic).

If I put my hand in the middle of the HDD tray for some reason it is vibrating (can only be felt) quite a lot stronger than anywhere else in the case - not sure the rhyme or reason for it without tearing down the system.

KraniX · 13 Apr 2017 at 09:29

Gabbatek said:
Since day one i've been battling this case for so long with vibrations coming through. I've narrowed it down to the top panel and the hard drive seats in the bottom. I was going to give up and get a new case but i refuse to be beaten!!!

What i found funny was the corsair rep on here has never heard of the 540 having vibrating issues but a quick search through their forums comes up with loads of posts with exactly the same issue and suggested fixes.

So im off to maplin to get some rubber mats to put under the hd's, rubber washers for all fans and some double sided tape for the grills.

/salty-rant

Send it back, sounds like a manufacturing issue.

C64 · 15 Apr 2017 at 13:09

Forget anti vibration products they will not work, bungee mod the hdd's can use anything even a bit of old string to suspend hard drives.
I've used fishing wire.

Rroff · 15 Apr 2017 at 13:15

KraniX said:
Send it back, sounds like a manufacturing issue.

Nope (unless its really loud) - seems to be some vibration issues with all of them - even without any HDDs if you put your hand on the middle of the HDD tray its vibrating quite a bit and as above there are 1-2 other areas that can start rattling if you aren't careful.

Evian · 15 Apr 2017 at 17:03

Had the same thing, I took my HDD's out because of it no more vibrations, I took the stock case feet off and put anti vibration feet on for washing machines etc.

Gabbatek · 15 Apr 2017 at 17:23

Doubt i'll be buying anything from corsair again. Even my 110i gt aio was faulty on arrival :/ at least the case no longer vibrates

KraniX · 16 Apr 2017 at 20:02

Rroff said:
Nope (unless its really loud) - seems to be some vibration issues with all of them - even without any HDDs if you put your hand on the middle of the HDD tray its vibrating quite a bit and as above there are 1-2 other areas that can start rattling if you aren't careful.

If they all have the problem then it's even more reason to suspect a manufacturing issue and worth sending it back.

FredFlint · 17 Apr 2017 at 11:16

All I can hear is fans (4 * SP 120 QE, PSU and GPU fan) in my 540 and it has 2 3.5" drives in the bottom. Having the weight of 2 drives in the bottom might help reduce vibration?