Rattling H100 cooler

[toontoonizer]

Hi,

I received my 3XS System last week or so, and it was great and everything was fine.

A few days ago my H100 CPU cooler developed a rattling noise - like a really loud old mechanical hard drive. Very annoying - since it could be audibly heard over the rest of the system even when the case fans were set to full.

Unfortunately for Corsair (and me) this is a very prevalent problem which affects alot of H100 users: http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=107252

The cause has been put down to an out of spec bearing in the pump.

So rang up Scan and asked for a replacement they offered an advanced replacement which was cool - also asked for the replacement to be tested before sent to me, because of reading horror stories where people have received 5 or 6 RMA'd units with the same problem. Received an email saying replacement had been checked and dispatched - happy days!

Unit received the next day - put it in - turned it on and the sound was far worse than the one i had before.

I e-mailed to say explain and inform them that i will be reverting back to the original cooler that came with the system - as it is less noisy (still doing my head in though).

I haven't received an e-mail back in regards to the collection of the unit to be sent back to Scan?

Also - how should i proceed now? Get an RMA through Corsair? I obviouslly don't have the box since it was a prebuilt system - but don't think that will be a problem.

[toontoonizer]

So someone got in touch to arrange a pick up, but no response on the issue of an (even moreso) defective unit being sent to me as a replacement?

Anyone?

[Ben @ Scan]

Hi

The replacement was tested on a testbench prior to despatch as you will have noticed it was resealed with Scan tape

We will check the unit upon its return to Scan as the issue may well be with the power supply in your system

Regards

Ben

[Thorbog]

What happened with this in the end? Can you describe in more detail what this sound is like?

I have just got a new 3XS system with a H100 and it sounds like I have an old school HDD permanently defragging? Is that normal?

My system is very noisy (fan noise) anyway which kind of helps mask it a bit but if I had a quiet system the sound would be irritaing. Even with the fans on full you can still hear the "defrag" noise.

Definitely sounds like it is coming from the H100 and doesn't sound like fan bearings. I've had water cooling before and the pump never made this sound but I don't know if the H100 is different and it is just normal?

[Thorbog]

I watched some videos on youtube and my cooler is faulty and has the insanity inducing grind.

For those with funny noises coming from their H series cooler I will save you reading hundreds of pages of forum threads by summarising what I found out from looking at my system and reading those websites:

Some PSU’s provide slightly more voltage to the cooler pump than others. This in turn makes the pump run faster and leads to a grinding/buzzing noise similar to a mechanical HDD. This appears to be what is happening in my system.

Scan could test a replacement cooler at their facility and find no fault because their test rig isn’t supplying enough voltage to create the noise. This would explain why the OP received another faulty unit that had been tested and appeared Ok at Scan.

This also explains why people with the fault can receive half a dozen replacement units that are all faulty - their system will always run the pump too fast.

There are a couple of home solutions that anyone with a soldering iron could knock up but ultimately if you have this fault the best solution is to receive a recently produced replacement unit.

The problem is that many of the old units are still in the supply chain as demonstrated by my new system having this fault despite Corsair acknowledging the issue and producing rectified units months ago.