PC Liquid Cooling - Top vs Back mounted Radiator and stuff
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 5:21 am
I've had Corsair H100 for a while now, but recently i noticed that my CPU temps have increased a lot. So clearly there's something wrong. I had the H100 mounted on back of the pc, i took of 2 fans from it and radiator was hot from bottom, but not from top. That indicates that radiator is half empty.
Well i mounted it on top and temps are back to "normal", still few degrees higher, but lot better.
Why this works? Well imagine what happens to coolant (not water, they use special coolant) when radiator is standing tall and then imagine what happens to coolant when radiator is on flat surface.
If there is NO air inside radiator, it should not matter if its back or top mounted, but if there's bit of air, like in mind (no idea how it got there, no signs of leak), then top mounted will siginificantly increase the cooling effectiveness.
When radiator is standing tall, then coolant will not reach the top, so it is equal to having smaller radiator, but if radiator is flat, then coolant is on bottom of radiator, still covering the whole surface of radiator, so both 120mm fans will be able to cool the coolant.
on a single fan radiator effect is smaller, but will result in same.
However im sure its not right, I'll take it apart, add coolant and replace tubes with custom tubes (transparent or red, haven't decided yet). Any and every radiator (whetever it's PC cooling, car radiator or central heating) should always be 100% full and without any air, if there's air, it loses its effectiveness.
Well i mounted it on top and temps are back to "normal", still few degrees higher, but lot better.
Why this works? Well imagine what happens to coolant (not water, they use special coolant) when radiator is standing tall and then imagine what happens to coolant when radiator is on flat surface.
If there is NO air inside radiator, it should not matter if its back or top mounted, but if there's bit of air, like in mind (no idea how it got there, no signs of leak), then top mounted will siginificantly increase the cooling effectiveness.
When radiator is standing tall, then coolant will not reach the top, so it is equal to having smaller radiator, but if radiator is flat, then coolant is on bottom of radiator, still covering the whole surface of radiator, so both 120mm fans will be able to cool the coolant.
on a single fan radiator effect is smaller, but will result in same.
However im sure its not right, I'll take it apart, add coolant and replace tubes with custom tubes (transparent or red, haven't decided yet). Any and every radiator (whetever it's PC cooling, car radiator or central heating) should always be 100% full and without any air, if there's air, it loses its effectiveness.